Aswan's Fall
by Manthor
Summary: The GDI has decided to launch an assault on a Yellow Zone base of Nod near the city of Aswan, in a plan to liberate it from Nod rule. This is the tale of one of the sniper teams deployed that was deployed there...
1. Chapter 1

Aswan's Fall Chapter 1

**Aswan's Fall Chapter 1**

**C&C AU Fic**

**WWW**

_2062, Operation 'Victory's Purgation', Reclamation of the Aswan Yellow Zone_

Corporal First Class Hasanal bin Abubakar or Hasan, as his friends called him, moved forward silently, his ghillie suit blending in with the desert background. Behind him Corporal's Gerard Maston and Zach Shalit, his spotter and flanker respectively, followed with practiced ease.

Taking care to remain as stealthy as possible, they made their way down an escarpment, cautiously climbing down to the water's edge. In the distance the exchange of artillery continued, the Behemoth Juggernauts of elements of the Steel Talon, Red Falcon and Iron Wolf divisions pounded the main Nod forces.

It was a fighting withdrawal as the 2nd Singapore Guards Regiment withdrew from the onslaught of the Brotherhood's elite armoured corps, the Fist of Kane. Composed of several Avatars and Scorpions, it was centred round a powerful core of Redeemers and a captured Scrin Eradicator.

In what was supposed to be a 'cakewalk' as senior command had supposedly stated, a regimental combat team consisting of the 2nd Singapore Guards and its three component infantry battalions, for a total of 15 active combat companies with supporting logistics and headquarter companies; supported by scout elements of the Malay Regiment and armour elements of the Steel Talons, had been deployed to the city of Aswan, a critical Yellow Zone territory.

This highly mobile armoured infantry force had been tasked with capturing a heavily fortified Nod base on the eastern bank of the Nile, on the other side of the venerable Aswan dam. Chosen specifically for their ability at air and coastal assault, direct action and raids, they were a highly mobile force with the right attributes for the task at hand.

Unfortunately, military intelligence had been wrong. Of all the different commands, Asia Command and South Pacific Command maintained the most competent and reliable intelligence services, relying to a high degree on a combination SIGINT (Signal Intelligence), ELINT (Electronic Intelligence) and HUMINT (Human Intelligence).

Central Command in North America was descended from the old Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency of the United States of America and while possessing a sophisticated suite of SIGINT and ELINT apparatus, lacked the qualified analysts to piece it together, unlike the other commands. This had resulted in the situation in Aswan currently going FUBAR, as was the common designation.

The 2nd Guards were an airmobile regiment, used for raids on fortified positions and direct actions, flanking actions and assault. Where commandos operated behind the enemy lines, the Guards regiment were the shock troops of the GDI and their trump card, operating in the NML (No Mans' Land) zone between two different fronts.

So when they had launched the first wave with Alpha and HQ Company of the 1st Battalion landing first, they had been unable to advance due to the potent anti-air defence grid that wasn't supposed to exist. Furthermore, they hadn't been prepared for the forces deployed there, least of all for the Fist of Kane, which was supposed to have been in South America.

The result had been the first two companies pinned down in a small zone of hilly terrain, surrounded on all sides by Nod forces, while they were subjected to nonstop bombardment from both the base defences and the Fist of Kane. What hadn't helped matters were the close misses from their own GDI artillery. Friendly fire it wasn't. However, the artillery barrages of the Behemoths was the only thing keeping them from certain doom. A Nod advance had been blunted due to concentrated artillery fire from GDI.

So they had ended up deploying the regimental pathfinder teams, a combination sniper and recce team, in a bid to open up a second front. Which explained why Hasan and his team were there; a GDI attempt to fix a FUBAR situation due to misinformation from intelligence.

Moving along the water's edge in a crouch, they referred to their map and GPS system, confirming it as their location. Their role was unerringly simple; infiltrate enemy territory, survey the area, destroy targets of opportunity and spread general chaos amongst their ranks.

**WWW**

Hasan exhaled deeply as he sighted the cyborgs through his scope.

"Bearing 062 degrees, ranged at 1671 metres" Gerard read out.

"Mark". With a burst of three shots, the cyborgs went down, victim to the tungsten carbide kinetic penetrator rounds of Hasan's Arctic Warfare RRC10B sniper rifle. Chambered for .50 calibre (12.7mm) rounds, they were capable of penetrating through light vehicle armour and were used for anti-infantry and materiel destruction from a long range. Which was how Hasan preferred it.

Zach maintained watch along with Gerard, carbine resting on the ledge of the hide they'd dug into a hillside and camouflages. They'd taken up a point near the old Egyptian tombs, a tourist attraction and historical curiosity that had fallen into ruin ever since the Brotherhood had taken over the area. The Brotherhood had other priorities besides maintaining what were essentially historical relics of a bygone era that were of no value to them. Most of the tombs emitted a green glow, from the Tiberium crystals that jutted out from the floor, walls and ceiling of the tomb.

"That's the third patrol that's come through this area in the past hour. They're going to get suspicious". Hasan nodded at the comment from Zach, looking through his scope at the ruined city across from him.

Yellow Zone cities were a breeding ground of disease and poverty, places where a battle for the minds and hearts of the people was fought over by GDI and Nod. Conditions were unsanitary and many bordered on uninhabitable. They were environmentally and socially harsh, most run by degenerate death cults, crime syndicates, religious fundamentalist and warlords seeking to maintain the power.

Just to survive was a daily struggle and if the crazies didn't get you, Tiberium exposure did. If not that, it was either visceroids, Tiberium fiends or becoming a casualty of the crossfire in the constant skirmishes between the GDI and Nod. No matter which way you looked at it, the common people suffered.

Hasan was well aware of the realities of such an environment. He'd grown up in a GDI Yellow Zone city, Johor Baru, in South East Asia, one of the few places that had stubbornly held on despite the Tiberium infestation. His mother had worked as a harvester driver while his father had worked on a hydroponics farm, struggling to get enough cash to send their families to a Blue Zone city. One could get in, provided you knew the right people and bribed a few along the way.

Blue Zoners jealously guarded their cities from migrants of the Yellow Zone. Zach and Gerard both came from Berne, a former Blue Zone city that was slowly being reclaimed from the Red Zone it had become. In the end Hasan had gotten out by enlisting with GDI, eventually moving his family to Japan with his earnings. His thoughts were interrupted by Gerard tapping his shoulder.

"So, any updates from regimental command?" Gerard asked. Hasan checked his datalink, before checking the narrowband satellite antenna that jutted slightly from their hide.

He cursed as he read the text that scrolled across the liquid crystal screen. Gerard's and Zach's faces fell upon hearing his swearing.

"As usual, there's no good news. It seems they've forecast an ion storm around Aswan, so we won't be getting any air support from the Orca's, Firehawks or the new Garuda's or for the next few hours. That also rules out our guys getting airlifted out of here. The Nod net is drawing tighter around our guys and at the current rate command estimates they can only hold out for another 2 days. Our orders are to push deeper if possible but otherwise stay put at our current location."

Gerard groaned while Zach's face fell further.

"Suck it up guys. Yeah, the whole thing is fucked up, but we do what we can. Anyway, I've got a plan. From here to Aswan is about two hundred metres or so of fast flowing water. It's a bit deep, but I reckon we can get across under the cover of night. The Nod forces will know we've been here when the patrols don't report back in another hour, and we've got another hour or so till nightfall. We swim across the river, use it to shield our heat signature and then we hide. There're plenty of ruined buildings along the waterline, so as long as we stay away from civilians we should be fine. Any questions?"

"Sounds like a plan. You're the boss Hasan. Who'll be overwatch?"

"No one. _All _of us are going across at the same time."

**WWW**

Tightening the clasps of his equipment, Hasan slung the SMG and sniper rifle around his neck, checking that his pistol was secure. The standard issue GDI weapons were the IMI Tavor 21C, a solid, reliable weapon from the early 21st century that was around before Hasan was even born.

The other weapon was the HK416, a derivative of the venerable M-16 family that combined American concepts with the precision of German engineering. These were the mainstays, though each GDI Command and division had its preferred standard weapon, from the sophisticated Western European rifles to the rugged Asian and Israeli deisgns.

Hasan's was a custom-modified FAMAS G4 with integral 3x scope and holo-dot system, a hybrid between a sub-machine gun and assault rifle. Gerard and Zach each used the HK 416B G2, as well as carrying the other requisite equipment of a pathfinder team, such as marker beacons, binocular scopes and claymore mines.

"Everyone ready?" he whispered, as they leopard crawled down to the water's edge. Gerard and Zach gave the thumbs up. Punching his fist, all three rose and sprinted the short distance to the river, diving into the freezing water.

All connected by a strong nylon rope, they wore rebreathers that allowed them to survive underwater for upwards of 3 hours. Weighed down by their equipment, Hasan led the way as he held onto rocks along the bottom, going against the current. Behind him his spotter an flanker followed, shadow figures against the murk. Hasan took extra care to avoid the Tiberium crystals that littered the riverbed, obvious by the green glows in the depths of the murk. You were as good as dead the minute you came into contact with one.

The minute they reached the edge, where the river bank dropped rapidly, Hasan started to swim, letting the current pull him as he kicked and moved his arms in freestyle. Overhead, he felt a slight rumble as the bank they'd just vacated was subjected to artillery bombardment. Without a doubt, Nod infantry would search the area afterwards and find nothing but an abandoned hide and assume they had withdrawn. It was the most logical thing to do after all.

Unfortunately, GDI pathfinders were trained to be unorthodox and _not_ to follow logic. Their instructor had a favourite saying; "_Show the Nod bastards the unexpected."_

And that was exactly what the Brotherhood was going to get.

**WWW**

Reaching the other bank, Hasan crawled onto the land, panting slightly at the exhausting experience. He pulled off the rebreather and gulped in breaths of the moist night air, his breath visible in the cold temperatures. He felt the water drain from his hard armour shell and the tug of the rope as Gerard and Zach crawled onto land.

Pulling them forward, they made their way to the cover of the overhanging concrete. They watched as fireballs rose from the opposite bank, where they'd been. During their afternoon posted there, they had cost the Brotherhood several teams of Black Hand, two cyborg commandos and more than a dozen Marked of Kane.

As such they were using the opportunity to reduce a barren hillside of Tiberium crystals and sand to molten glass. Hasan checked his datalink, marking the locations of their fellow pathfinder and sniper teams. What he found sent a spike of unknown emotion through him.

Hasan began to chuckle quietly before Gerard and Zach joined him in the revelry. As they finally quieted down, Gerard asked the critical question.

"What's so damn funny? The Brotherhood wasting their ammo on a hillside or what?"

Hasan's smile finally broke down to a grimace. "My friends, Allah forgive me for my mistake, but I think I might have led us into…deeper shit. When they gave the order for us to stay put or advance, apparently that was _another _miscommunication. They were actually ordering everyone to hold their position until an armour battalion joined up with us. The order they sent us was actually meant for a patrol of commandos who were northeast of us."

"Oh. Shit."

"Exactly. My friends, we're the only pathfinder them on the other side of the river, trapped behind a screen of Nod forces. In short, we're in the pits of hell with Shaitan to our left and Asrael to the right."

"So…what are we going to do?" Zach asked, the gravity of their situation slowly dawning on him.

"What we always do. Insha'Allah, we survive."


	2. Chapter 2

Aswan's Fall Chapter 1

**Aswan's Fall Chapter 2**

**C&C AU Fic**

**A/N: Notice the fact that its an AU fic guys, as in alternate universe. Forgive me for any minor errors, but I don't let that get in the way of a (hopefully) good story. It's alternate universe, as in diverging from the canon storyverse.**

**WWW**

They'd taken shelter in an abandoned hotel that was a shell of its former glory. The past six hours had pushed the pathfinders to the limits, as they hid under rubble and darted from building to building, avoiding the Nod patrols or the ragged convoys of the warlords and crime syndicates who operated in the city with impunity.

From briefings they had received, Hasan knew that the city was divided into several districts, each under the control of any number of warlords or crime kings, parasites surviving on the masses. Cults that worshipped Kane thrived in the city, displacing the Islamic faith that had dominated the city for centuries.

However, the top predators of this food web were unquestionably the Brotherhood of Nod. Many of the warlords had profited from them, often bringing in GDI 'sympathisers' who'd been dragged off the streets. Usually, they were innocent people who'd offended the warlords in some way.

It had taken all their training to navigate the ruins without attracting the attentions of the masses. To keep warm, they'd scavenged clothes from several gangsters they'd happened across in a nearby building. They'd engaged them in a running fire fight, using their superior training, fire discipline, range and skills to circle around the gang and liquidate them, all 30 of them.

Pathfinder sniper teams were feared by Nod forces for good reason. Standing orders as such by the Brotherhood indicated a take-no-prisoners approach to pathfinders. Where with other GDI troopers, they would simply imprison them and use them as hostages, experimental subjects or in prisoner exchanges, with pathfinders it was a shoot-on-sight policy.

Pathfinders were a rare breed. In addition to securing drop zones, gathering intelligence and delivering briefings to follow-on forces, which were their primary duties in serving the airmobile elements of GDI UP - they also conducted operations ranging from ambushes and reconnaissance behind enemy lines to hostage rescue. They were general purpose Special Forces assets, second only to the GDI Commandos Formation and RAID in terms of their ranking and usage, though not their diverse skills.

Extensively trained in stealth tactics; hand-to-hand combat; the use of explosives for demolition; parachuting; amphibious warfare; rock-climbing; mountain warfare; desert warfare; jungle warfare and as ski troops. They differed from other GDI Special Forces assets in their versatility across different operational environments, fulfilling a niche that Nod sorely lacked.

They were also distinguished by their specialisations – they were all superbly trained in unarmed combat, with an almost universal preference for moving light and engaging in hit-and-run attacks against Nod forces, eschewing the heavy armour of the Commandos and RAID.

**WWW**

Hasan peered through the scope, the nightglow of Tiberium spikes field along the edges of the town visible through the thermal imaging lenses of his rifle. In an eerie way it was beautiful. He'd grown up with that same glow lighting the night sky of Johor. Tiberium spikes, besides refining the Tiberium onsite, served as a way to effectively contain a field from spreading by its constant mining of it.

He checked on Zach and Gerard, whom he'd ordered to take a rest while he stayed on watch. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, assessing his own state. Tired, but in hyper-alert mode - which for him wasn't just a state of mind, it was a state of biotech.

Nano-glands had been regulating his adrenaline since they'd crossed the river, keeping watch for any sign of muscle fatigue, and loading his blood with super-coagulants, nutrients, and other goodies he probably didn't even know about or couldn't name.

He wouldn't be feeling the effects of pushing himself past the limits of sleep and endurance for a couple of days yet. They made him a super-soldier in the sense that his stamina was greatly enhanced - as were his reactions, due to the superconductive fibrification of his neural dendrites, which boosted his reaction time to one sixth the human standard norm while under stress.

He'd formerly been a lieutenant in GDi's Special Operations Directorate, Section Zero, which dealt with covert operations that were too distasteful for GDi to ever openly acknowledge and were in fact illegal under GDI and international law, often violating several human rights in the process. Trained as a commando, he'd been responsible for several covert and clandestine ops, many of them involving 'wetwork' or _mokroye delo, _as the old Soviet KGB had referred to it as.

He'd enlisted right out of junior college in 2050 at the age of 18 after accomplishing his Advanced Level General Certificate of Education or the equivalent of a high school graduation certificate, 2 years after the first Scrin War. Due to the need to support his family, he'd enlisted and been granted his officer's commission with the commandos within two years, based on his service, training and academic records.

After 3 years working with the commandos, he'd been attached out to the black ops units of GD-Special Forces-Section 0. There, he'd eventually volunteered for a program that promised to enhance their physical capabilities to superhuman levels using experimental nanotechnology.

The end result of Project Bahadur as it was known had ended up in nearly a third of their volunteers dead and the rest suffering various form of injury, most of them mental. Many had committed suicide after, suffering from psychosis and other forms of mental injury. In the end, what Hasan had spent years seeking to earn he received as financial compensation which enabled his family to migrate to the blue zone paradise of Japan.

Disgusted with the betrayal of the institution he'd served, he'd chosen to revocate to a pathfinder and adjust his contract, shortening it and serving out his remaining 3 years as a corporal first class in his home states military.

**WWW**

Gerard woke up when his alarm began to vibrate and beep. He shut it off and would have gone back to sleep if not for the boot that nudged his chest.

"Get up Gerard. It's your shift. Here's some coffee."

Hasan handed him a steaming mug of coffee that Gerard gratefully received. He looked up at Hasan who seemed tired but still alert, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. At the bottom of the stairs they'd rigged a trap with their claymore mines, providing advance warning of any incoming threat.

"I'm going to try and contact HQ while you're on watch, so I'll be up on the roof. While you were sleeping I spotted a convoy of Venoms and artillery being transported via train. I know it's risky but we've got to get the message out. The minute the ion storm lifts they're going to hit the trapped companies with everything they have."

Gerard, still bleary eyed, nodded, taking in the information. He reached out for his HK416 DMR rifle, letting his scoped GD-5 lean against the wall. He cursed internal GDI politics, especially the bickering over budgeting and technologies. The GD-5, while powerful, simply didn't fit the requirements of the Guards or Pathfinders like the HK 416.

Since bulky powered armour would have simply slowed them down and even the lighter encounter suits like other regiments or their compatriot guardsmen, they found it far too heavy to carry without a suit to augment their strength. They preferred lighter weapons, moving light, blending in with any civilian populace and then retreating out of the fight after achieving their objective.

**WWW**

The GDI was a global confederation of nations, similar to the European Union or the Commonwealth of Independent States that was formed after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and not a federation like the United States of America. It was a hybrid of a federation, confederation and commonwealth that could be considered a single political unit and superstate.

The nature of the relationship between the entities constituting GDI varied considerably. Likewise, the relationship between the member states and the central government, as well as the distribution of powers among them, was highly variable. This could be seen in the relationship between the different countries that made up GDi.

While they were nominally supposed to cooperate and follow a common line on military, foreign policy, economic and ecological affairs, and the majority of nations did, there were bound to be conflicts.

Due to the world-spanning bureaucracy required to run it, GDI was divided into five main military commands with regional sub-commands under them. Overseeing all of them was CENTCOM, Central Command, or as they were popularly referred to by the soldiers on the line and the people in the streets – 'the arseholes up on high'.

In the aftermath of the UN's collapse, as Tiberium spread across the world and GDI's rise to eminence as the most powerful force on the planet, there had been vast political turmoil as nation-states jostled for key positions and tried to maintain their autonomy from GDI. Caught in the crossfire were the defence corporations of the world and the different nation's military organisations who'd been forced to amalgamate their military strength to the GDI.

Against their will, many nations had been forced to surrender their military autonomy to the GDI, which had reorganised it according to its wisdom. Due to GDI being funded by the major world powers of the time, primarily the Western European nations, the United States of America, China, India, Russia, Japan, the Korean Republic and Taiwanese Federation, they had the greatest say in what occurred worldwide.

Predictably, like any major power, they'd protected their interests first and foremost, often at the expense of their allies and greater good.

As a result of this many soldiers had been dismissed from militaries worldwide in an effort to downsize and cut costs. All the while Blue Zone security agencies and private corporations based in the Blue and Yellow Zones proliferated.

From the year 2004 to 2027 GDI had fought and suppressed several rebellions and brushfire wars that had spread around the globe, fuelled by the incredible loss of land, life and wealth, as well as the dilution of national and ethnic identity, spread of the global Internet and ecological destruction wrought by Tiberium. Nod had not done any favours by intermittently performing large scale terrorist attacks on vital infrastructure, many disenfranchised soldiers enlisting with their ranks.

The effects of the internal bickering had only ceased after the Second Tiberium War. The Blue Zones were in the traditionally rich countries with temperate climates, safe behind vast concrete walls and resonator fields that protected their inhabitants from the ravages of Tiberium and the effects of ecological collapse.

They also had large battalions of GDI forces garrisoned nearby to protect them from Nod threats, while corporations in any sector excepting the defence and private military sector were banned from having their own private armies.

GDI Blue Zone troops received the best weapons, the most generous budgets and the top positions in GDI, obvious in the selection of senior staff. The GD-5 with its integral ion cannon and grenade launcher was standard issue among them, especially so in Europe and North America.

In comparison the Asia, Africa and South America Commands received smaller budgets despite often facing larger threats and so had come up with creative solutions to their problems, inventively acquiring materiel through unconventional means to support their military capability.

Many of the countries in these regions stubbornly refused to surrender their military autonomy, often funding GDI at the same time as they maintained their own armed forces. As such, regiments like the Royal Malay Regiment, Indian Gurkhas, Australian SASR, Royal Brunei Land Forces and the Singapore Guards continued to exist.

Refusing to be beholden to senior GDI commanders or defence executives who'd never experienced the hardships of the Yellow or Red Zones and were too arrogant to listen to them, they'd maintained the rugged and reliable weapons technology of the early 21st century over the GD-5. Cheap to produce, easy to maintain, simple to learn and rugged, it was enduring technology that was the legacy of the Israeli and Russian weapon designers.

All of which went a long way to explaining why their unit was currently using such old designs. Of course, the situation had improved in the aftermath of the First Scrin War. As a whole, all GDI members and their supporting militaries had better access to the latest technology in the present, though many units were reluctant to abandon their reliable, battle-tested weapons. Some regiments had different operational needs compared to the rest of the mainline GDI forces.

But some of the old distrust still lingered and older regiments, especially those of South East Asian, East Asian, Israeli, Russian and Australian origins had famously refused to give up their production facilities.

Stubbornly maintaining their hold on their production facilities, most units hung onto their traditional ballistic weapons and utilised new nanofabric uniforms over the heavy armoured suits of the rest of GDI.

With the new experimental nanotechnology that was proliferating, things were about to get a lot more interesting.

**WWW**

Hasan gasped for breath, feeling the onset of the symptoms that plagued him since Project Bahadur. He took out a nebuliser and put it to his mouth, inhaling deeply as he pressed on it. The nanoparticles would infiltrate his cell membranes, stabilising the nanites that periodically acted up.

His body responded to the situation by producing reactions akin to an asthma attack, which was why he carried a nebuliser with him at all times.

Drawing deep breaths, he hunkered down against the low wall that surrounded the roof. This close to a Nod base he was not keen on making a transmission. In a congested urban environment, even with narrowband, there was a chance that Nod would detect it.

Due to his location, he couldn't very well use the laser as it was LOS (line of sight) dependent and between him and the nearest receiver was several kilometres of hilly terrain and concrete building.

Then his eyes happened across a satellite dish.

**WWW**

Zach was shaken awake abruptly, interrupting the dream he was having of his girlfriend dressed in nothing but a black lace teddy. The vision of his girlfriend was instead replaced by the image of Hasan shaking his shoulder, face concealed by rags.

"Zach, you think you can jury-rig our radio to use a directional satellite dish to send a transmission to the _Gilgamesh?_" Hasan asked.

"Um...yeah. Sure. Should be able to do it. Why?"

"We need to urgently get a message out to HQ that they're bringing in extra artillery and air support from across the river. The minute that ion storm lifts they're going to hit the LZ and the nearest air support for us is about 3 hours out from here."

Zach immediately got up. The flanker of the sniper team, he served as the security man who protected the rearguard, as well as being a trained signaller and medic. Popping a caffeine pill, he ran up the stairs following Hasan while Gerard maintained watch.

"Before we go though, get all your stuff ready and prepare to move. We know that Nod's got a listening post somewhere in the region and once we get the message out, they'll know that we're here" Hasan spoke as they raced up the stairs.

Zach nodded.

**WWW**

"You guys ready?" Zach whispered to Hasan and Gerard. Gerard nodded, body primed for action. Hasan scanned the streets with his rifle, down to his last 30 rounds. He was on overwatch.

"The minute I send the transmission, Nod's going to be on us like a fiend on a visceroid. I'll take a few seconds to disconnect the radio from the dish but once it's up I'll sling it and we'll move across. You go first then I'll come after you. You're sure that power line will hold our weight?"

"Sure thing Zach. Last thing you need to worry your Jewish ass about is us falling down. Worst that can happen is we fall twelve storeys and snap our backs, fracture ours skulls or impale ourselves on Tiberium crystals."

"Cheerful fella aren't you?" Zach replied, a grimace on his face. Gerard simply replied with a grin.

"That's why the ladies love me."

Tapping the message into the set, he watched as the satellite dish activated, drawing energy from the radio's batteries to power itself. He observed as the satellite aligned itself, the tip slowly tilting upwards, away from the horizon. It reached its azimuth and then it began.

Within seconds the transmission had been sent. Pulling the plug, Zach slung it over his shoulder, turning and pounding the concrete as he ran and leapt, grasping onto the leather belt attached to the power line strung between the buildings. Gerard was already flying across, hanging on for dear life.

Closing his eyes, he felt the wind hit his face before he opened and saw he was across, a concrete wall rapidly approaching him. Or was it the other way round?

He let go and rolled, the momentum of his fall carrying him in a roll that ended with him colliding with Gerard. They clumsily picked themselves up as they rushed for the door. Within a minute the building they were in shook as several powerful explosions rocked the building they'd just left. Hasan scrambled up from his position, his expression telling them all they needed to know.

Not pausing for a single moment, they scrambled down the stairs, rushing from building to building as the abandoned neighbourhood they were in erupted around them.

**WWW**

Panting hard, the trio eyed each other. The bombardment had forced them deeper into the city, which was the last thing they'd wanted. Over the public loudspeaker system a strident voice cut through the chill morning air, the Arabic harsh and guttural.

"Any of you speak Arabic?" asked Gerard, as he sipped water from the water bladder in his backpack.

Zach and Hasan raised their hands before dropping them and eyeing the other. Nodding to Hasan, Zach dropped to the floor.

"You want to hear the good news of bad news Gerard?"

"Just tell it to me plain."

"It seems dangerous rogues of the GDI, terrible unbelievers of Kane, horrific infidels who eat babies and rape women, are in the midst of Aswan. An unknown number but not more than twenty. So they're asking everyone to cooperate and find these men."

"Well...the only way to go is up. We can't get into any deeper shit now. Think of the bright side" Hasan said.

Abruptly, the concrete wall they were leaning against collapsed, dust rising around them. As the dust settled they came face to face with several heavily tattooed gangsters gathered around a deck of cards. Several were caked in concrete dust.

Gerard smile sheepishly, raising his arm in greeting. "Salaam alai'kum..."

They stared at him intensely, all of them reaching for their weapons, whether it was knives, pistols or rifles. Zach and Hasan followed the line of their stares, right to the exposed GDI patch at Gerard's right shoulder.

**WWW**

Lieutenant Colonel Robert Jambu was 34 years old, an extremely capable leader and competent commander of a young age who'd formerly been the CO (Commanding Officer) of the 2nd Guards Battalion before being promoted to a staff position as a diplomatic defence attaché on board the GDSS Gilgamesh.

So when word reached him of the situation in Aswan, CENTCOM burst into a tornado of activity, the engine of this activity being Jambu himself.

Through a torrent of calls from Guards HQ officers and shouted accusations of negligence on the part of CENTCOM MI (Central Command Military Intelligence), Jambu masterfully negotiated the frazzled nerves of the intelligence officers and calmed the anger of HQ Guards over the incident.

However, things only got worse as the _Gilagamesh_ turned every sensor it possessed on the Nod Aswan base. From orbit, acoustic and seismic sensors were landed, burrowing into the ground, protected by thick heat shielding and thick zirconium casings.

As the sensors burrowed into the ground, they sent out pulses of sonar and radar, giving CENTCOM a map of the base and the surrounding terrain. The findings set alarm bells ringing among MI.

GDI had mobilised the attack in an effort to liberate Aswan from Nod control, as well as to destroy or capture the research material of the Brotherhood. The base was known to house several Scrin artefacts that the Brotherhood was attempting to reverse engineer. It was also known data crystals which contained data from the Tacitus.

It was a strategic asset for sure, but all previous evaluations of the faciity had rated it a credible though insignificant threat to GDI interests in the Egyptian Yellow Zone.

As the sensor data reached the _Gilgamesh_ via an array of communication satellites and powerful infrared laser pulses that punched through the ion storm, Lieutenant Colonel Jambu's face began to crease, before locking into a grimace.

The Aswan base was an enormous complex, with the majority of it underground and hardened against assault. From the seismic readings gained from the sonar of the probes, it stretched beneath Aswan Lake and underneath the city, with well over 500 metres of sand and rock separating it from GDI firepower.

According to interpreted sensor data, not only did it contain crucial research and engineering facilities, it also contained command and control facilities sufficient to act as a backup Temple of Nod. GDI MI had thought it had only hit oil. In reality it had hit oil, gold and crack cocaine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Aswan's Fall Chapter 3**

**A/N: **Look at the 'directed energy weapons' article in Wikipedia. How wonderful the world of general knowledge is. A tip o all writers – writing stories is a craft. It's a form of art in a sense as well as a sort of science if you will.

Do your research on what you're writing about so that you have good background material to work with. Another good source is the CnC Wiki.

**WWW**

The Ion Cannon was the premier weapon of the GDI, the fact of its very existence so often a disincentive to Brotherhood High Command in their more rational moments. More accurate and precise than a nuclear warhead and without the associated political and ecological fallout of nuclear weapon use, it had served GDI's intentions well for decades.

A strategic weapon of vast destructive capability, the tremendous advantage it afforded the GDI over the decades had been nullified by Nod distributing their forces across wide areas of the globe, camouflaging them as much as possible among the civilian conglomerations of the Yellow Zones.

GDI could very well have destroyed the Nod forces if they wanted to, but the fact was that unlike the fanatics of the Brotherhood, the GDI was _humane_. They were simply not as ruthless as the enemy the fought and so were unwilling to enact the hard decisions that would have assured them absolute victory, if one could call it that.

Such decisions, if they had been taken, would also have been counter to the stated GDI goal of reclaiming the Yellow Zones from the ravages of the Tiberium ecology and in fact would have worsened it.

Ever since the Third Tiberium War, the Brotherhood of Nod had taken to installing Liquid Tiberium silos in all their major strategic facilities, making things that much harder for the GDI. This had resulted in them seeking alternative approaches.

The Ion Cannon was a strategic weapon and with good reason. As with all directed energy weapons, whether radiation or particle-based, in an Earth-standard atmosphere the beam tended to defocus around power densities of a megajoule per cubic centimetre due to plasma breakdown.This effect, called blooming, caused the beam to defocus and disperse energy into the atmosphere. It was an effect only worsened by cloud cover and weather phenomena such as fog,clouds, mist or dust. This resulted in it having to be a strategic weapon.

While possessing great potential as a tactical weapon, GDI simply didn't have the technology to miniaturise it to that level just yet, as below a certain power threshold it's effectiveness was severely affected .

In the interim, they'd decided on a different weapon system to utilise in scenarios that required more finesse than an ion cannon or nuclear weapon. Orbital hypervelocity railguns. Besides serving as artillery, they served to provide a formidable defensive layer that could literally shred anything short of a Scrin mothership to fragments.

Which was why Ltc. Jambu was rapidly linking up with Space Command on the distant cousin of the GDSS Gilgamesh – the TCSS Shanghai.

After the proposal of the construction of an orbital network of hypervelocity kinetic weapons, the SCO (Seoul Cooperation Organisation), a bloc of states within the GDI that consisted of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, China and the Indian sub-continent (the few areas that weren't Red Zones at least), Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sulawesi, Australia and the South Pacific island nations had opted to construct their _own_ system.

This was in no small part due to the lack of the North American zones willingness to share their technology with their allied nations. Another contributor was the fact that after the merger of the European Union and the states of North America, the European and North America Commands were constantly at each other's throats over issues such as funding, bureaucratic practices and what else.An example had been the refusal of the civilian government of the former United States of America to convert to the metric system, a problem that had been solved by the Europeans forcing it down the throats of the last Congress, which had subsequently been disbanded.

This generally tended to slow the development of weapons down as issues got politicised and caught up in the bureaucratic red tape of the two behemoths.

The SCO was designed as a bloc within GDI to protect its own interests in the areas of economics, ecology, legislation, scientific research and defence, a close alliance that could actually get things done.The end result had been that their orbital weapons system was fully operational several years ahead of the GDI's own, while the SCO was already prototyping their own flotilla of spaceborne warships in the event of a Scrin invasion.

**WWW**

Rear Admiral Choi Gaesomun was a career military man who'd served a decade with the GDI at the start of it before being reassigned to the Korean navy's blockade operations in the Middle East, where he'd interdicted Nod shipments of weapons, narcotics and black market Tiberium.

After a successful career that demonstrated his competence and strategic acumen, he'd been reassigned to Navy TRADOC (Training and Doctrine) as Director (Operations) before being put in charge of the new space station and its attendant orbital networks.

He was also a man who'd harboured a distrust of the GDI, like many people from outside the European and North American Blue Zones. So it had been surprising to say the least when the GDSS Gilgamesh had opened communications with his station and asked for his aid.

The plasma screen showed a young man of Southeast Asian descent in his mid 30's with the markings of a Lieutenant Colonel, dressed in the uniform of the Singapore Armed Forces. Gaesomun looked into the face of his old protege, a man he'd helped instruct in OCS more than a decade before.

If it involved Jambu, it put Choi more at ease than with mavericks like Philip Ricardo or the notorious Graham brothers, a trio of brothers who served in the North America Command and were known for their unorthodoxy. In his entire career, the ones whom Gaesomun had respected the most were Javier Vega and Robert Jambu, the first his comrade, the second his student.

"Good to see you Jambu. Anything I can help you with?" Jambu asked, the private link over which they talked encrypted and filtered. He already suspected it had to do with the situation down in Aswan, word of which had rapidly spread through Asia Command.

"It's more like an under-the-table deal sir. You know that railgun system you have in orbit?"

Choi cocked his eyebrow. "The one that's classified and officially is still in the prototype stages but actually works? Let me guess, you need help to extricate your Guardsmen from the situation in Aswan."

Jambu's eyes lit up. "Affirmative sir."

"Send the targeting information to the bridge. I'll approve the firing. Besides, the boys in R & D are always harping on about having it field tested. This is the perfect opportunity."

"Just watch our for the civilian areas sir."

"Don't worry. It'll be minimal. Besides, we got better targeting software than anything the Americans or Europeans could ever hope for. "

**WWW**

Hasan assessed the situation currently facing them. 3 of them versus 12 Yellow Zone gangbangers. Any statistician would have said the odds were against them. Hasan begged to differ.

Rather, it was 12 Aswani gangsters versus 2 elite GDI Pathfinders of the 2nd Singapore Guards _and_ a super-soldier reject who could still move and react faster than any normal human could ever hope. As he prepared to move, watching the barrels of the rifles and pistols as they rose, taking aim at them, the concrete floor _moved_.

Simultaneously, all the windows shattered into fragments, breaking the tension as the gangsters and pathfinders rushed to seek cover. Nano-glands flooding his system with adrenaline and countless other hormones, Hasan lunged into action.

He entered the fugue state that distinguished his hyper-alert, faster-than-human state of perception, the glass fragments falling slowly in relation to him, as he saw the specks of dust glint in the reflected light.The sounds of his comrades were muted, their mouths opening and closing in slow motion as they shouted unintelligibly at the gangsters The gangsters were even slower, eyes blinking with incomprehension at the blur of motion that he'd become.

In 3 seconds, 4 of them were dead, a full third of their number. His fighting knife glistening with blood, he stabbed another through the neck, the serrated edges of the sharp ceramic blade ripping through muscle, tendon and ligament as it sawed against bone.

Whipping around, he saw the blood flow in slow motion, like the still frame of a film. The next opponent was a massive Nubian, a tattoo of the Brotherhood's scorpion tail inked into his cheek, dark brown, nearly ebony skin stretched over massive musculature, both arms cybernetic. His eyes were glazed over with a thin blue-red film, the sign of an 'Eye Candy' addict.He lashed out with his arms and Hasan dodged, receiving a glancing blow from one of them to his head. He stumbled and fell to the floor, tumbling and rolling as he sought to stand before two massive men launched themselves at him, kicking him in the ribs.

He rolled with the blows, stabbing another man in the thigh while kicking out the Nubian's knee, watching him collapse in a writhing mess of pain.

**WWW**

Gerard and Zach opened fire opened fire on them the instant Hasan struck, emptying their magazines in fully automatic fire. Even firing from the hip, this close to them they couldn't hope to miss.The gangsters themselves were in disarray after the surprise assault by Hasan. It was over in a matter of seconds, the gangsters either dead, too injured to fight back or engaged in a struggle with Hasan.

The big Nubian attempted to strangle Hasan, getting him into a headlock, before Zach used his rifle butt to deliver a devastating stroke to his skull. The Nubian went out like a light, before Hasan ruthlessly finished him off, ramming his dagger through the Nubian's neck and into his brain.

Panting heavily, he leaned against the wall before tremors started to shake his body. He began to cough harshly, phlegm mixed with spittle drooling from his mouth as he hacked away. Tersely, he tried to grab his nebuliser before it fell to his feet.He dropped to his knees and grabbed it, putting it to his mouth and breathing in deeply as he inhaled it, the counter-agent entering his system and stabilising it. Wheezing, he leaned against the wall, body emanating heat, skin slick with sweat and eyes heavy with fatigue. His body burned with a need for carbohydrates and sugars.

Gerard and Zach shared a look. It wasn't everyday that one of your close friends suddenly gained superhuman attributes and they weren't dumb. Contrary to popular thinking, one had to be relatively smart before entering the Special Forces, qualifying with at least a higher diploma or associate degree before they even bothered to look at you. In essence, GDI wanted killers who could quote Einstein and have a competent understanding of complex numbers.

They'd heard rumours of a super-soldier program through the military grapevine. While the Nod cyborg super-soldiers were common knowledge to the media, there had always been speculation about the existence of a GDI program to accomplish the same.

Leaning against the wall, they took a short breather. When Hasan could breathe properly, he looked at them.

"I suppose that explains why you never needed to sleep so much and always had so much stamina. Project Bahadur I presume?" Zach said, meeting Hasan's gaze.

"One of their rejects. Two thirds of the volunteers who took part either died from the side effects like cancer, were crippled or suffered some form of psychosis. I was one of the _lucky_ ones. I had everything they were looking for except for the little fact that my body is either rejecting it or accepting it at random times. If I push my self too far like just now...well, you saw what happened."

"Hm. So the rumours were true. That's GDI for you" Gerard said. "Listen Hasan, you ok?"

Hasan struggled to get up, taking the extended hand offered by Gerard. In the distance they heard the sounds of the bombardment continue. Looking at the gangsters who were moaning in pain, Gerard gave Zach and Hasan a look. Hasan glanced at the injured and nodded. It was unspoken.

The gangsters, despite being non-combatants under GDI ROE (Rules of Engagement), posed a threat to them if they remained alive. For the Pathfinders to remain alive, they had to die. Pulling out their pistols, they fixed the silencers to the barrels.

There was no such thing as the _innocent _side in a war as far as Hasan was concerned, only the side which performed the lesser evils and managed to survive.

**WWW**

Stripping the dead gangsters of their clothes, they put on their clothes while dressing some of the corpses in their GDI uniforms. Wrapping clothes around their heads to protect against the cool dusk, they made their way through the ruins, rifles wrapped in rags. They'd hid out on the outskirts during daylight to avoid being caught, finishing their last packet of combat rations.

Cut off behind enemy lines, they could hear the rumble of hypersonic rounds falling from orbit impacting the earth. As far as they could tell, the GDI had managed to destroy the artillery positions that had pinned down the Guards, who'd managed to evacuate on foot with moderate casualties after 48 hours of sustained bombardment.

At the very least, that was all they could interpret from the scrambled transmissions they'd managed to pick up on their radio from Nod and GDI frequencies through all the interference. Now it was not their fellow Guardsmen they had to worry about. It was themselves

Slinging their weapons, they made to move deeper into Aswan, the way back crawling with Nod patrols eager to capture the infiltrators. Ironically, they only way they could survive was if they continued to move forward, deeper into Aswan.

**WWW**

Read Admiral Choi stared in amazement at the print out. They'd utterly devastated the Nod positions, but GDI forces in the region had been badly mauled as well. With the ion storm not lessening for another day, any assault had to be postponed until tomorrow.

The Guards had withdrawn to holding positions further south, upstream of the Nile, with the rescued companies rotated out from active duty for rest. From their forward operating base south of Aswan, close to Abu Sombol, they would strike once the ion storm lifted.

The scientists had been overjoyed to test out their orbital artillery and the results had exceeded expectations. The only problem was that they'd exhausted the entire stockpile of ammunition for the system. According to intelligence reports and scans from the _Gilgamesh_, the outer air and ground defences had been utterly smashed from the nearly continuous bombardment.

Of course, none of this amazed the Rear Admiral. It was the fact that a small group of Pathfinders had managed to infiltrate Aswan and survive when by all rights they should have died. They'd been the ones to notify the _Gilgamesh_ of their position and he'd gladly directed some artillery support their way. The admiral unconsciously scratched the Pathfinder badge on his own uniform. He'd been among the first batch of Pathfinder instructors, bringing his naval expertise to the job. 'Once a pathfinder, always a pathfinder' as he was fond of saying.

He sincerely hoped that they survived.

**WWW**

In Yellow Zone territories controlled by Nod, guns were legal and their trade unregulated, Nod only asking for a cut of the profits from the merchants who traded in them. The trio had regretfully had to ditch their rifles among the ruins, having exhausted all their ammo. As such, they were now using venerable _Avtomat Kalashnikova Model 1974_ or AK 74's.

A product of 20th century Russian design, it was a rugged and enduring design that was surprisingly accurate once the electronics were upgraded. Chambered for 5.45 mm rounds, most modern military and police ballistic armours could defeat it with ease. However it had no problems shredding through Visceroids, Fiends or unarmoured human beings for that matter.

Gerard's gun was an entirely different matter. Grinning like a lunatic, he clutched his prize in his arms; an USAS-13 automatic shotgun, produced by Daewoo Heavy Industries of Korea, renowned for their discovery of synthetic hydrocarbons or artificial fossil fuels.A generational improvement over the underrated but incredibly powerful USAS-12, it was made of a carbon fibre composite that gave it a tremendous strength to weight ratio. With excellent weight distribution and mechanical ruggedness, it was a 12-gauge automatic shotgun that could shred anything short of Scorpion armour depending on the ammunition load. Chambered for 10 round box or 20 round drum magazines, Gerard held it like a schoolboy cradling a porn rag.

Zach carried the radio, stripped down and hidden in his backpack. Trooping through the ruins, they circled around and made their way back through the ruins, now pockmarked with craters from the earlier bombardment. Hasan had thought the orbital artillery system was still in the testing stages. Obviously he'd been mistaken.

By now it was inevitable that they'd have to mix with the civilian population of Aswan. They'd run out of room to manoeuvre and had no other choice. In the cratered wasteland towards the river, Nod patrols of Black Hand elite scoured both banks for any sign of them.

Hasan raised his fist and made a circle, pointing to a derelict building that bordered on a busy street. Faces concealed, they dashed to the back of the building before peering around the corner. At that moment a Nod buggy took the corner, filled with off-duty soldiers.

Reversing into a lot just off the main road, they clambered out, eager expressions on their face. Ducking back into cover, Hasan beckoned for Zach and Gerard to cover him before peeking out again. The soldiers were gone, their buggy locked. Looking as non-threatening as possible, Hasan sidled up to the main street and did a double-take at the explosion of noise and light that encountered him.

Before his eyes was the seediest environment he'd ever seen in his life. Neon lights blazed in all their glory, promises of carnal pleasure emanating from holographic projectors mounted on buildings. Pornographic sounds and sights galore infiltrated his senses, sex shops and seedy bars dotting the entire street.

He'd just walked into the infamous Midnight Carnival, possibly the seediest sex district in the entire world, its nearest rival the Patpong and Soi Cowboy districts of Old Bangkok, now a wasteland of concrete ruins and Tiberium.

**WWW**

"Here's your money. Now leave" Hasan tersely told the girl. She was a waifish little thing, barely more than 14 and already plying the trade. Using money filched from the gangsters they'd killed earlier, Hasan, Gerard and Zach had eaten a light meal and rented a cheap but relatively clean room in one of the less seedy hotels dotting the district.

Looking at the guns lying across the bed and the packets of white powder on the table, her eyes lit up before Hasan slammed the door in her face.

"Well, that's done" Hasan stated as he collapsed into the chair. Zach and Gerard were taking power naps, sprawled across the bed. Hasan hadn't realised how hungry he was until the first morsel of bread had entered his mouth. He'd paid the girl to accompany them, looking like a trio of gentleman about to share a woman between the three of them.

The packets of white powder were their alibis. Liberated from the bodies of the nameless gangsters who'd presumably been drug dealers, Hasan guessed it to be high-grade heroin. The sort of stuff that could earn you 20 years in the Blue Zones of Europe or the death penalty in the Asian zones.

He switched on the television, a simple liquid crystal display monitor. He flipped through the channels, watching the financial news as well as the local propaganda channels espousing the glory of Cain and the evils of the GDI. The news spoke of dead infiltrators, switching to news feed of the gangsters they'd shot.

Hasan chuckled wearily. Once they discovered who the corpses actually were, it'd be too late for the Brotherhood. Drifting off to sleep, he failed to notice the camera hidden in the air conditioning shaft as it panned to the packets of heroin on the table...

**WWW**

Meera Sinclair was the personal assistant and attache to Dr Merovin, Chief Scientist and Director of Projects in the Aswan base. She was also a deep cover agent of GDI InOps, having been secretly sending back information to them for the past 3 years. She'd only been recently promoted to her post as attache to Dr Gideon Merovin and to date it was her most important assignment. Unfortunately she'd been unable to contact her handlers for several months due to the sensitivity of her posting.

Ever since the Scrin War, the Brotherhood had been spending a generous amount of money on research into interstellar travel and teleportation, finally achieving a breakthrough in the form of phase gates.

Phase gates were a device that carved a path through dimensional space and operated based on the principles of quantum mechanics and superstring theory. Essentially, they twisted dimensions of reality more compressed than space-time to transport a person from one location to another, even if it was impossible under conventional physics.

They manipulated 'probability' so that while it was impossible for an entity to be in that location, they made it so probable that it became possible and ultimately, a reality. At least, that was the easiest way to explain in in plain English to laymen.

Dr Merovin had just finished a session with his favourite whore and Meera sniffed in disgust. For all his scientific brilliance, Dr Merovin had an addiction to women and drugs. The fact that he was who he was enable him to get away with it.

A young 14 year old girl he'd sampled earlier had mentioned accompanying a trio of men to a room earlier, only to be dismissed. Drug traffickers in this case. She'd only been too eager to mention the heroin they were carrying for a promise of a share.

So now Meera stood outside the room with a posse of bodyguards backing her up, Dr Merovin behind her, eagerly licking his lips in anticipation of the heroin high.

"Come on Meera, surely you can keep your boss company for a little thing like this can't you? After all, its your job to look after me isn't it?" groveled Dr Merovin.

"No" Meera finished, casting him a dark look. She found him a disgusting pervert that offended her sensibilities, but that didn't stop her from being professional. Calm,cool and detached, just like they'd taught her at InOps.

She knocked on the door and waited for it to open, only to be met by a shotgun to the face. She looked down its barrel unperturbed.

"My employer here would like to sample your product. I presume we can cut a deal?" she said, voice calm and authoritative.

A gruff voice that sounded _very_ familiar came from the room. Deep and husky, it was a harsh tone.

"Just you and your client. You're Brotherhood people. Not good for business. Rent the room directly above us. Same number. We'll come to you. We keep our guns. Nod people can't be trusted with our product." Meera felt increasingly uncomfortable. That voice sounded suspiciously like an old lover of hers.

The man had a point though. The Brotherhood soldiers had a reputation for undercutting the freelance traffickers and running off with their profits, the traffickers and smugglers unable to do a thing beyond sucking it up and carrying on with business.

She nodded and waved her hands to the soldiers, trigger fingers itching for a fight. The Brotherhood maintained a compact with the traffickers, the big cartels maintaining a monopoly on the supply of such drugs as cocaine, heroin and cannabis in different areas. The last thing they needed was to draw attention here.

These men were seemingly freelancers by all indications, which meant that they could be under contract to any of the cartels in the city. The Brotherhood generally avoided killing contractors of the major cartels for the simple reason that it made life easier. While the Brotherhood could wipe them out, the cartels were a major source of income and allowed the Brotherhood to better control the social conditions in Aswan.

"Agreed. Meet us in Room 615 in 15 minutes."

**WWW**

Zach leaned against the wall. It just never ended. First they'd infiltrated Aswan and killed a bunch of gangbangers before taking their drugs and now they had a Nod official, a high-ranking one by all indications, buying drugs from them.If it wasn't so ridiculous he would have laughed.

But the best thing had to be that his ex-girlfriend had been standing outside the door and negotiating with them, dressed to kill, in a Nod officer's uniform. They'd exchanged one situation for another. Out of the Tiberium field, into the path of an ion cannon, skirting the edge of a nuclear warhead and now they were in the jaws of Nod.


	4. Chapter 4

**Aswan's Fall Chapter 4**

_Command & Conquer and associated are trademarks of Westwood Studios. Original concepts and ideas are mine._

**WWW**

Meera concealed her absolute shock surprisingly well. Zach had done so as well while Hasan maintained his stoic silence and Gerard was absolutely non-plussed. It was the same all over again, Zach and Gerard, occasionally joined by Hasan.

She'd known Hasan for a more than a decade and was close friends with him. She'd grown up with him in the Johor Yellow Zone, daughter of a refinery plant manager from England and his Indian wife. Going to the same school, it was to her fortune that they'd met as they did.

Going to a coed secondary school, Meera had been picked on by some of the girls as well as the boys for being reserved and quiet, the nerdy, smart girl whose head was buried in books and computers all the time. A member of the drama club as well, she'd been subjected to vicious bullying by her classmates constantly.

Eventually she'd made friends with Hasan, whose younger sister was in the drama club. A serious, hard-working boy, quiet and diligent, he was also a prefect and the captain of the Vale Tudo team _and_ a school swimmer. Apparently, being a sports captain, prefect and school swimmer gave him _a lot_ of clout amongst the student community.

The bullying had eased away after he'd used his pull as sports captain of the Vale Tudo team and position as a prefect to send a message to the bullies. The more persistent ones had eventually learnt to avoid her after she threw a boy twice her size into the pool, courtesy of Hasan teaching her a thing or two. The rest had disappeared after she'd been seen associating with his clique. Bullies were cowards, and one did not want the school martial arts team, known to produce district champions every year, to come after them.

Personally, Meera was surprised he'd joined the military rather than becoming a corporate or government scholar and eventually a civil servant or politician. Hasan seemed more at home running a corporation or some sort of mafia operation rather than being a soldier as far as she was concerned. And she meant the latter in a good way.

No longer that geeky little girl, she was an accomplished espionage agent whose reputation for professionalism among her colleagues was renowned. If anything, they would have sworn she had ice water in her veins.

**WWW**

"So...I assume your product is high-grade and will go for...a packet for a thousand?" Meera helpfully said as she looked at Hasan. He glared back at her, playing the part of a hostile businessman to perfection. He'd always been a good method actor and an excellent improvisational actor – courtesy of his sister blackmailing him into playing the part of gangster or villain innumerable times in school plays.

His voice, slow and grating, ground down on Gideon Merovin's nerves. He licked his lips, moistening them, eagerly anticipating the coming narcotic high. His eyes flickered back and forth between the packets of heroin, barely larger than a small packet of pocket tissue.

"Because of who the customer is, we'll be charging you higher. After all, I don't usually deal with Nod. We're independent...brokers and do business with everyone. We need to recoup our losses. After all, Nod aren't known for being trustworthy. Say... a thousand five?"

Dr Merovin rose up in anger. "That's ridiculous. We _rule_ this zone. You do business here because we let you. Do you _know_ who I am?"

"I don't really or care. You're a motherfucking Brotherhood cunt-face who wants my product? Fine. I'll do business with you, but I set the price. Your boys are bleeding the zone dry and killing of my customer base. Bad for business, what with GDI winning and all..."

"The Brotherhood has the welfare of the Aswani people at heart -"

"And that's why you allow people like me to traffic in this? Why a young girl like that can sell her body? Wow, I applaud you. Great leadership."

Hasan began to clap, applauding the Dr Merovin with sarcasm written all over his face. Dr Merovin attempted to reply but stopped, realising he'd lost the battle. Before a sly grin came to his face.

"So you're a GDI sympathiser aren't you? Mr..."

"You may call me Ali. GDI bastards - arrogant uptight arseholes, but then I wouldn't be in this business with them around. Trying to threaten me? We can make you disappear Dr Merovin. Nod may rule the zone but the cartels run the streets.

Meera cut in at this point. She knew Hasan's history. His close friend had been a Nod sympathiser, caught up in trying to pose as a big-time sympathiser for money before he'd got in too deep. Asian governments didn't care too much for Nod sympathisers and unlike the Western Hemisphere members of the GDI, were more than a little ruthless.

The Brotherhood was far less prevalent and more underground in the Asian regions for the simple reason that most of their supporters tended to 'disappear' and if found, were more or less clinically dead. Their deaths tended to be attributed to 'extreme lead poisoning' and 'copious amounts of neural tissue leaking from the skull'.

Human rights were all very well and good until it came to the Brotherhood of Nod. The government detained him without trial, arresting him while he'd been walking in the street and interrogated him with a vigour that was generally reserved for pedophiles, child molesters and rapists. Asian counter-espionage were rather paranoid with regards to the Brotherhood after all.

Hasan had tried using his influence as a GDI Special Forces operator and what few political links he had to try and get his friend free…and it had _nearly_ worked. Unfortunately, his friend had hung himself in prison before the review board could clear him. Hasan still blamed himself for it at times, for not being able to protect his brother. But it had inculcated in him a near fanatical dislike towards Nod.

There was a reason why he'd volunteered for Project Bahadur. His fanaticism had been tempered over the countless black ops he'd carried out, slowly recognising that in many ways, GDI mirrored Nod, though was the far better option. GDI , even with all its faults, was for humanity and Earth and sought to at least maintain a level of survival for the greater majority of the population that didn't stress the already fragile ecology of the planet.

"Dr Merovin, perhaps I could be left to negotiate with these businessmen? It would certainly be less stressful for you sir. Please, take a seat in the room you booked. I'll be with you shortly."

She casually dismissed the escorts and closed the door. She held it closed until she was sure they were out of hearing range before meeting the looks of her old friends.

**WWW**

"How long's it been Meera? Three years?" Zach asked, keeping his distance from her. Hasan and Gerard shared a glance. The two had history between them. Memories of shared intimacy, of the times they'd spent together came to Zach as he smelt her familiar perfume.

"Four actually, since the day you broke off our engagement."

"You were engaged?" Gerard asked in surprise before Hasan cut him off with a glare. Gerard knew better than to ask any further.Beter not to get involved with a lover's tiff.

"Since we don't have time for this little reunion shall we pay attention to more _pressing_ matters?" Hasan asked pointedly. As the situation was, it was already FUBAR (Failure Beyond Attempted Recovery/'Fucked up Beyond All Recovery' colloquially).

He neither had the time nor patience to let the personal matters of anyone complicate the immediate mission – to escape from Aswan. While their regiment had already been pulled out of the flames and into the water, their situation was no better. The Brotherhood was still hunting for them and would by now had smarted up to the fact that the corpses they'd dressed in their uniforms were actually some faceless mooks off the street.

Meera glanced at him and saw the visible fatigue on his face, the lines that furrowed his brow. While a handsome person, the stress of life and the constant fighting on his part hadn't let him age very gracefully. He looked 5 years older than he actually was.

"Meera this is Gerard. Gerard – Meera. She's a spy from InOps. Now to business. We can catch up later. Meera, I assume you're undercover right?"

Meera sighed, glad to have escaped dealing with the situation with Zach. Her ex-fiance, he'd broken off the engagement during a particularly hard time in his life, after his father had died from cancer and he'd been left the sole breadwinner while still in university. He'd dropped out and signed up with GDI Special Forces, given that it was a family tradition. His father was a sniper and he'd followed in his footsteps, becoming a pathfinder.

Still, despite the circumstances the situation had left no small bitterness in her heart towards him. At least with Hasan around they could concentrate. He was a capable leader for the simple fact that he could get people to focus on the task at hand by virtue of his logical mind and common sense. For everything he'd went through, he was a man of faith whose religion grounded him. It was rare to find someone like him.

"Salaam Hasan. I apologise for the initial friction. You were the last people I expected to see in Aswan. InOps has been monitoring this facility for years, and after we gained information that supposedly fragments of the Tacitus were here, I was assigned to infiltrate the base."

Hasan nodded. In a way, she'd joined the GDI because of him. After graduating university with 1st class honours in drama and journalism, without the faintest idea as to what to do, he'd jokingly suggested she put her acting skills to good use serving the greater good of humanity by joining the GDI.

Taking him at his word, he'd arranged for an interview with an old friend from InOps and that was the last he'd heard of her for a year before suddenly running into her wearing the stripes of a junior lieutenant while on leave in London. It was also there that he'd introduced her to Zach, then a pathfinder in training and 5 years her junior. They'd hit it off and before he knew it his two closest friends were engaged. Then they'd broken up and things had become a bit too prickly for his liking.

He pulled down the bundles of cloth that concealed his face and smiled. In better times, they'd have met in a pub or on a _kelong_, a floating fish farm that reared crabs, lobsters and fish in controlled environments, in waters freed of Tiberium algae.

With the prevalence of Tiberium worldwide, much of the available land in Blue Zones was carefully managed and efficiently maximised for various purposes, with most people living in high-rise apartment blocks, while agriculture had shifted to using vertical farming, aquaponics, hydroponics and aeroponics to feed the population of the Yellow and Blue Zones under GDI control.

Beef was a luxury product only the richest could afford, while chicken and fish were the staple foods of the current age. Hasan remembered stories from his grandfather of when beef had cost _only_ a dollar for a kilogram, while nowadays a kilogram of either pork, beef or ostrich could fetch the princely sum of a hundred dollars for a kilogram.

"So Meera, do you think you could help us escape from Aswan? I'm sure you've heard about us by now from the public loudspeakers" spoke Hasan, a wry smile on his face. He could still hear the loudspeakers outside, faintly reporting the news that the 'GDI infidel hate monger imperialists' had been captured and shown the light of Kane.

"That...might be a problem. Access to Aswan is heavily restricted due to the critical nature of the research they carry out. If you mean by train, you'd need approved tickets and passports from Nod officials which I have access to. And given my position, it'd look suspicious if I did so, since it would essentially blow my cover. And my current assignment is too valuable to do that. But there could be a way..." she mulled silently.

There was a hidden cache of arms and escape vehicles that she'd assembled over the past few months, letting no one but Dr Merovin know, deceiving him into thinking it was an emergency cache designed exclusively for his use in the event of something going wrong with his research, or political infighting starting up again in the Brotherhood.

"And what exactly are you doing that's so high priority?" Zach asked, curious to know.

"That's classified and you don't have the clearance. I'm not obliged to answer you Zach" she said swiftly, a trace of bitterness in her voice. Just because she didn't express her anger towards him openly didn't mean his presence didn't affect her.

"But I do Meera. And I need to know if we're going to survive this" Hasan spoke calmly, hands folded in his lap.

"Sit down. It's a long story but I'll try to keep it short. Basically, whatever they stated publicly to you guys, that's _not_ the Tacitus or any fragments of it that they have in there. It's...something that...I'm not sure but the way the Brotherhood is conflicted over what to do with it makes me think there's something more to it. From all the rumours I've been hearing, it's an artefact that's got even Kane spooked."

Hasan nodded. Their current situation had stabilised but if his suspicions and intuition were correct, their mission had just expanded its parameters. As an InOps officer, an elite one who could be trusted with deep cover operations like this, Meera was one of the best. And when dealing with InOps, he'd learnt from experience that within the Brotherhood, rumours generally had a great degree of truth.

"Take 5 minutes and tell us in summary. I've got a faint idea of where this is going and I think if we play our cards right, I'll be able to exfiltrate all of us from Aswan without harm."

"Hasan, did you just say _all of us?_As in me being part of the 'us'?" Meera questioned, a slight panic overtaking her. For as long as she'd known Hasan, he'd also been a man who was known to come up with brilliant improvisational plans that often saved the day as much as they caused a tremendous amount of trouble for all involved. And her instincts screamed to her that this time was no different...

**WWW**

Dr Gideon Merovin reclined in the chair, taking a deep puff from his cigarette. With tobacco so expensive now, due to most arable land turned over to cultivating food crops, they were a luxury good only the richest could afford. As such, being the Chief Scientist of the Aswan Temple, he was privileged enough to enjoy access to them.

Blowing a smoke ring, he took another puff and sunk back into the cushioning of the sofa chair, letting his body sink into its contours. It was his day off and he planned to enjoy it. Ever since he'd been assigned Navia Masood as his assistant, life had greatly improved for him. She was a tremendous asset, with a photographic memory able to piece together all the details of his day while he concentrated on the more important details.

Ever since the discovery of the artefact, codenamed Cerberus, the hound of Hades, the internal leadership of the Brotherhood had been thrown into political chaos, with Kane for the first time being opposed by multiple members of the High Council at the same time over the course of action to take with regards to Cerberus.

At the tail end of the Third Tiberium War, after the successful counter-attack by the GDI had driven the Scrin offworld, a remnant force of Scrin had been annihilated by Nod forces in an ambush as they retreated to the last remaining Threshold tower. While sifting through the remains of their vehicles, they'd found an anomalous object in the wreckage.

In an effort to gain an edge over GDI, intensive research had been devoted to analysing and reverse engineering Scrin technology, allowing for improvements in material sciences, power generation and Tiberium harvesting, while theoretical physics had gained a tremendous boost by the display of practical wormholes that were possible.

However it was the Cerberus that had defied Nod scientists until just recently, when two fragments found to be in GDI hands were recovered and placed in the presence of Cerberus. The results had been astonishing, to say the least. It had emitted a scramble radio signal with a burst of tachyons as well as opened a nano-gauge wormhole through which it had transmitted a high-energy maser in the exawatt range, defying conventional physics and producing an energy output several magnitudes above what human technology could achieve currently.

The bursts of information it had given out had rapidly subsided, but not before at least several terabytes worth of data from the radio burst had been recorded onto solid-state memory disks. What they'd uncovered was alarming.

Among the first things uncovered was the Arecibo message, followed by a string of prime numbers repeated in cycles of ten. The data that had followed had shocked them greatly. It was a key to translate the clearly sequenced fragment of data sent.

**WWW**

As they'd translated the data, intelligence had analysed and evaluated it, along with corresponding data from recovered Scrin data crystals and classified parts of the Tacitus. When the final picture had come together, the shock it had sent through the High Council was nothing less than earth-shaking.

A species known only by the titles 'Chinek' or 'The Silence', but who the Scrin referred to as the 'Starkillers', had been engaged in a genocidal conflict with the Scrin for the past million years, the onslaught barely stopped by the Scrin who'd been pushed to the verge of extinction until they'd found the reason for the conflict.

According to the Scrin, the reason for the war had been the attempted colonisation of a cluster of star systems which the Chinek, a species of artificial life forms, inhabited along with several other carbon and silicon-based life form species under their protection. Like any animal whose home was invaded, they had attacked.

The Scrin had only worsened it by destroying what they thought was a key part of the infrastruture that maintained the Chinek military. It had instead turned out to be a holy relic that was a centre of the Chinek religion. Heavily damaging the structure, the onslaught that followed had turned what had been a defensive war intended to push the Scrin out of their home into a genocide.

The resulting backlash from the Chinek had devastated Scrin population centres until the Starkillers had reached their homeworld and utilised an asteroid to crack its crust before leaving. This was considered rather minor compared to the fact that the Starkillers had lured an entire Scrin armada into a star system and caused the star to go nova, wiping out a full third of the Scrin's naval capacty.

The resulting interregnum had splintered the homeworld-fleets of the Scrin, who'd eventually recovered after several millennia and rebuilt their strength. In an attempt to remove the threat, an expeditionary force had been once more deployed into known Chinek territories, around a dyson sphere in the Andromeda galaxy.

The force had disappeared without a trace and for the past hundreds of thousands of years, the Scrin military had devoted more than two-thirds of their strength to maintaining a quarantine around the said area of space, even avoiding the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy for the simple reason that they'd been colonised by species associated with the Chinek.

Their entire reason for harvesting Tiberium or 'The Ichor' as they named it, was to gather enough resources to confront the Starkillers as well as create habitable ecologies for themselves through the transformation of the environment, to ensure their survival as a species against something they'd barely survived.

**WWW**

As Gideon mused on it, he tapped on the laptop in front of him. The revelation that there was a species more technologically advanced and older than the Scrin was one thing. That the Scrin had barely devoted but a fraction of their strength to attacking Earth, and even then had devastated both sides with what were now known to be non-military units was the spark that had set off the schism.

Several of the younger Brotherhood commanders had there and then called for a truce to be made with the GDI, in the interests of consolidating the strength of humanity to face the possible threat of annihilation.

Other commanders had called for a renewed war against the GDI, in order to unite the world under the flag of the Brotherhood. Kane, as usual, had his own agenda. Given the ideological violence of the three past wars, any commander who'd suggested an alliance had been executed.

Several hardliners had already been assassinated in turn while many younger commanders in the Asia-Pacific region had gone into secret talks with the Asian governments seeking truce and eventual inclusion of their own territories and forces into the SCO framework, given that the SCO, while a hard negotiator, was more pragmatic than the Western European and North American GDI governments.

Meanwhile the GDI was dithering over whether now was the best time to attack, as spies from within fed back to Nod. The initial assault on Aswan was the first push, an exploratory maneuvre

The Western Hemisphere coalition of the GDI would have insisted on disarmament and demobilisation of the forces as well as democratic reforms and the disassembling of the entire apparatus of Brotherhood civil administration, in a bid to purge them of Nod's taint. The SCO were pragmatic in that they adopted something like the Russian approach to technology, which involved placing one thing that worked on top of another thing that worked, creating something that while not too efficient was rugged, redundant and reliable.

But all this was secondary to Gideon's own research. While one did have to be somewhat of a political animal to survive in the Brotherhood, just like any other organisation, his priority was science. Gideon had no use for ideology or fanaticism, instead preferring the artistry of science, a statement which he saw no reason to see as a contradiction.

Indeed, he saw science as a systematic study of the natural world _and _an art. One had to straddle both worlds to appreciate the creativity and logic required in science.

Science as an entity progressed by steady, incremental amounts over a given interval, with irregular interruptions by bursts of insight from great minds such as Newton, Einstein and Hawking, much like religion had evolved from sudden revelations as to the nature of the world by the likes of Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. While scientific advance was owed to the former, one greatly desired the latter.

Not since Hawking or Einstein could one argue that Gideon was currently among the most brilliant scientists in the world and he owed much of his work to the sudden bursts of insight that came to him as he mulled over the mundane details of physics in his mind.

He'd retreated into the world of science since a young age, losing himself to it laws and linearity, unable to handle the intricacies of human relationships. Logically, he knew his 'heart', or more technically his emotional quotient was low and probably broken, not that he cared too much.

Growing up in the Algerian Yellow Zone ruled by Nod, one of the wealthier ones as well, he'd been selected to be among the scientific elite after his work came to the attention of several senior science officers. It had helped to save his mother and sisters as well as him. As long as he immersed himself in science, his family didn't starve and he got to do what he enjoyed.

But somewhere along the way. he'd lost something and ever since then, he'd filled the gulf in his life since then with drugs, escaping into the state that it brought. To be fair, he didn't really enjoy it and truly wasn't addicted to it, but it had become a habit and so he continued.

Working his way up the ladder, he'd learned to calculate his moves, becoming a competent politician, though lacking that spark of charisma that defined a politician, always using his logic and never his emotions. Due to his political neutrality and self-acknowledged scientific brilliance, he'd been able to get a posting to Aswan and been placed in charge of uncovering the mystery of Cerberus.

And what a mystery he'd uncovered. Barely less than a fortnight ago, in a bust of insight he'd redid the calculations as he'd realised their major mistake, attempting to apply Euclidean and Newtonian mathematical concepts to this technology. Rather, it required one to look at it from a quantum angle.

The artefact _Cerberus_ was something so far beyond the Tacitus that it had initially shocked him and forced the entire science team to relook their data. The _Cerberus_ was an object that essentially violated several well-known physical laws as humans understood them, and then some.

The only way they could explain its existence and mode of operation was as a 512-dimensional hypercube which manifested in the form of a simple cube of silicon-based material in space-time. So far, every time it had undergone spectroscopic testing, the results it returned were different. The only thing consistent about it was its inconsistency.

Given that it violated M-theory, which postulated 10 alternative dimensions to space-time plus one extra dimension, it had sent the entire science division into a tiff and forced them to relook their data. Their basic principles were intact but to actually understand the Cerberus required a phase shift in the current paradigm and an understanding of the structure of space-time several magnitudes beyond what was currently known.

Turning his attention to the analyses of the fragmented data captured on their hard drives, the assessment of his fellow scientists did nothing but astound him. After fully deciphering the data, the technical details had astounded him. While they didn't understand everything about it, Nod now had in its clutches the technology for practical interplanetary and interstellar transport. The Starkillers had given humanity keys to the stars.

The deciphered information from the Cerberus had full details on how to construct whad had been termed a 'phase gate', essentially carving its way through dimensional space and folding it such that one instantaneously appeared at a fixed point regardless of distance. While it didn't violate causality, it was certainly food for thought.

The next had been a vast library of information on the capabilities of nanotechnology and its dangers, in essence a manual as to the best use of the fledgling technology. Gideon had full copies of both on his hard drive.

He heard a knock on the door and watched as the drug dealer Ali came in with Meera, his own and the other man's bodyguards waiting outside. In Meera's hands were clutched several vials of heroin.

"Your secretary and me reached a deal boss. A pleasure doing business with you" the man said, a wide grin on his face. Meera winked at Gideon who smiled back. She was such as efficient assisstant. She just had a way of dealing with difficult customers that left Gideon amazed at her. That and the fact that she was known as a 'badass bitch' back in the base left him glad that she was on his side. After all, one didn't mess with a woman who could flip over a hundred-fifty kilogram man with practised ease.

He rolled up his sleeves and prepared to inject himself, looking forward to escaping the gulf within that gnawed at his mind once more in the euphoria of the narcotic.

**WWW**

As the drug took effect Meera stepped in front of him and began to talk to him softly, watching as his eyes glazed over and his head began to nod from side to side. She quietly withdrew a syringe filled with sodium thiopental and found an artery on Dr Merovin's arm. She swiftly injected it, measuring the dosage to match the heroin.

There was a small danger that he could die from an overdose but she was careful, doing the best she could under the circumstances. While truth drugs were effective but known to have disputed reliability, in combination with hypnotic suggestion they were a devastating weapon in an interrogators arsenal.

Many hardened fanatics had revealed their secrets to her as she subjected them to the treatment. Of course under GDI law it was a rather grey area that InOps fully exploited, used in facilities outside the North American Blue Zones due to the sensitivity and legality of the techniques involved.

"You are in a restful, euphoric, happy place. It is nice and warm and dark. Listen to the sound of my voice.."

Hasan watched carefully as Meera set to her work.

**WWW**

"So..." Gerard said as he looked at the Nod soldier. They were elite Black Hand, assigned as part of the personal bodyguard of Dr Gideon Merovin. They stared back wordlessly at him from behind visored masks.

"What's your name?" Gerard said, forcing a smile on his face. It was the first time he'd ever come this close to a Black Hand trooper. Usually the closest he ever got to meeting them was from behind the scope of a rifle. They were usually too dead to speak afterwards.

"O'Riley. Sergeant" the man intoned mechanically, looking at this drug smuggler. The silence returned thicker than ever. Gerard scratched his head before coming up with an idea to break the ice.

"Since your boss is off getting all high and flighty, how 'bout a game of blackjack or poker?"

At this Zach grinned. If anything, he was a card shark. The only person he hadn't beaten yet at either poker, blackjack or chess, his three strongest games, was Hasan himself. A Black Hand soldier, obviously senior, made to move before restraining himself.

Gerard blinked. Another card shark.

"How about we do it with real money eh? Make it more interesting. I'll even wager you my gun. a classic beauty. Imagine owning this beautiful fully automatic shotgun, capable of tearing through the toughest personal armour of any GDI infantryman eh? How 'bout it mate?" he began, imitating an Australian accent horribly.

At this point the one who'd identified himself as O'Riley broke out into a burst of laughter before proferring his hand to Gerard. "You're on Arab of Aswan. For a yellow zone dog you've got balls. The Black Hand are the elite of the Brotherhood. By the end of this game you'll regret ever crossing the Black Hand of Nod."

"It's set then. Just to be sure there's no cheating, we'll have her deal the cards" Zach said as he pulled a folding table out from beneath the bed, motioning to the teenage whore who'd chosen to remain to start dealing cards.

And so began a most unlikely game of poker, as the GDI Pathfinders sat across the table from the Black Hand, fighting for victory in this game of cards.


	5. Chapter 5

**Aswan's Fall Chapter 5**

**Command & Conquer and associated are trademarks of Westwood Studios. **

**A/N: Apologise if this is rather too expository for some people. Guess that's my base style with fiction, along with interjections of action and flashbacks in general. Actually intended this to be longer but I decided to end it at this chapter so I apologise for the quality. I don't like to leave things unfinished but I have other projects to attend to and only so much time.**

**Honestly it reads rather like a bad movie script. Started out good but sadly I lost interest. I'm just finishing this off because I don't want to take it off and I don't like to leave things unfinished.**

**I guess this is an example of a fic that started out good but kind of meandered off somewhere else. But here it is...**

**WWW**

Hasan tried concealing his growing shock at the revelations as they came pouring from Gideon's mouth. The information he possessed, the intellectual trove that lay on his computer's hard drives, the promise that lay within, the possibility of humans finally reaching the stars, of a potential threat greater than the Scrin. All of it was confirmed by the files on his laptop.

He scrolled down the files, the text reflected in his iris as he stared at the equations that barely made sense, countless annotated notes written in Gideon's personal shorthand appended to various points, question marks and exclamation points rife in the complex mathematics of the equations.

He closed the files and shut down the laptop, locking eyes with Meera as she stared back, Gideon sleeping heavily on the bed.

"This changes _everything_. Meera. We _need_ to get out of here. With this information. With Gideon Merovin. We can't let Nod keep a hold on this information. This....we need to call in SpecOps and InOps. We need to let CENTCOM know."

"How? You're in Aswan Hasan. Nod territory. They've got electronic scramblers all over the place. Every airborne transmission is monitored. I know what sort of security they have. For all its fanaticism, Nod isn't dumb. They've survived against the GDI for decades. I was lucky I got this far. A lot of other deep cover agents have been compromised. And now, with the alert level the highest its been in years, there's no chance you'd escape. Lay low for the time being."

Hasan silently leafed through a sheaf of papers, his eye catching the glint of the sinking sun as it reflected of the crescent of a ruined mosque. At home, at this time, the muezzin's call to prayer would have resounded on loudspeakers through the neighbourhood, calling the faithful to prayer.

Christianity. Islam. Judaism. Hinduism. Buddhism. Jainism. So many religions had suffered as Tiberium had ravaged the world. As if the deities had abandoned their fateful. As the Brotherhood of Nod had rounded up the clergy of said religions and its followers, leaving them in the Tiberium fields to die.

Then his eye caught the heading on the paper. A military assessment of the applications of a working prototype phase gate, able to teleport troops into battle from distant locations, as well as teleport enemy troops away.

Similar to the chronosphere of the old Alliance but working on different principles using coiled dimensions of reality too small to perceive except as quantum phenomena, a compressed layer of space through which the information that composed an entity was transported instead of the space-time continuum being folded into pockets.

"They have a functioning prototype" he said, handing her the document.

As Meera read through it the implications of it began to seep through. With this technology Nod could deploy its forcer to any point on the globe and even in spsace, be it deep within a Blue Zone or even the fortified space stations and lunar bases of the GDI & SCO themselves.

"We can't let them have this technology. And even Nod knows how dangerous it is..."

Meera remembered. The science staff's assessment to place a moratorium on further research had been ignored at the highest levels of the chain of command, with orders from Kane to proceed despite the increasingly anomalous radiation signatures emanating from the Cerberus as well as increasingly lethal phenomena occurring around it. Just last week a micro-singularity had spontaneously generated within the spectroscope chamber where the Cerberus was stored, dissipating in a burst of gamma, X-ray and Hawking radiation within milliseconds.

"So you're a GDI spy....." they heard a groggy voice say. Gideon had awoken.

**WWW**

The threat was implicit in the way the pathfinder held the gun. Unlike soldiers from the North American and European Blue Zones, the GDI of the Asian and African zones tended to be somewhat more brutal in their treatment of Brotherhood personnel.

They had no qualms with making them '_disappear_' while European and North American zones were far more humane in letting Nod prisoners have access to lawyers to aid them in their cases. When it came to interrogating people, the Asians, in particular the Indonesians and especially the Malaysians were notorious in their effectiveness.

So Gideon did what he had to do. He cooperated.

It was a shock that Meera was a GDI spy. She'd always been the efficient secretary and assistant to him. Now he saw her in a different light as she eyed him coldly, hand on the small pistol in her holster, a ceramic needle gun that could be concealed in her clothes and bypass most scanners. Did he mention that she'd doubled as his bodyguard?

The real worry was the man. He'd taken off his concealing mask to reveal a face of mixed descent. Pathan blood added to the melange of Malay, Formosan Aboriginal and Han Chinese that flew through him. Not that he knew it but Gideon could guess from the slanted eyes and high bridge of the nose that he wasn't purely Malay.

In the vast displacement that had ruined so much of the planet's ecology, Nod's ideology had clashed in bloody conflicts with the Islamic faith that had ultimately resulted in the nuclear destruction of Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities of the Islamic world. In turn, the Brotherhood's greatest defeats had come at the hands of those Muslims who lived in Southeast Asia, for they'd resisted the most fiercely, neither giving nor asking a quarter.

But it wasn't so much his distinct looks that bothered him as the way he carried himself. He moved with a fluid economy, smoothly and with no wasted movement, a restrained violence in the way he was behaving towards him. The man had an intelligence behind those eyes that constantly assessed those around him. Gideon turned back to Meera.

"Is Meera even your real name?"

Meera eyed him warily. In a way she regretted that his had to happen to him. Gideon wasn't so much a Nod sympathiser as a scientist who simply wanted to carry on his job. He had his human failings with his liking if not habitual ingestion of narcotics and the use of whores, though ultimately she'd worked with him long enough to know that he preferred science over politics any day. He lacked political ambitions and prioritised his work over his political status though ultimately had to make a compromise on the situation.

"As real as my job as your assistant Gideon."

"Hmph. Superficial cover. You always were a good assistant. So organised. So efficient. Meera, you know we're deep inside Aswan. There's no way you could get out without setting off an alarm. Once my men discover who you really are...."

"Your men have been dealt with. They're GDI Pathfinders Gideon. There's a reason why Nod have a shoot-on-sight command for Pathfinders. Besides, even if you were rescued it would be quite unseemly for you to return to Nod..." Meera said slyly.

"If you remembered correctly, you once slept with the daughter of General Hogar. For all your vital scientific skills, I doubt that the Supreme Military Commander of the Brotherhood and Kane's right-hand man would let you go free once he saw those photos."

"There are...photos?" Gideon said, his face paling in realisation.

Meera nodded.

"I sent the photos to most of the science staff. Even if you aren't killed, which is a distinct possibility, you'd probably be safer defecting over to GDI. Your choice. Oh, and my friend over there? He's a pathfinder. A very competent one at that. We _could_ kill you and leave your body here while we escape. Or you could aid us and get us out of Aswan. Even if you captured us, which I don't think will happen, what are your odds of ever regaining your prestige within Nod?"

Gideon sagged down in defeat, face pale and sweating as he assessed his options. For all his intelligence, he'd never been a cunning man and his interpersonal skills were less than stellar, along with the fact that his political base was already shaky.

He may have had Kane's personal support in scientific endeavours and was of the scientific elite. But he'd made the mistake of angering the power behind Kane, General Hogar, whose calculated generalship had allowed them to survive in the face of persistent GDI raids and inter-factional skirmishes.

"You don't really have a choice but you do have an hour to choose a side before we move. Being the rational man I know you are, you'll choose the side which will ensure your survival. Aside from your minor foibles the GDI would be more than happy to welcome your scientific expertise and intimate knowledge of Nod."

She left the room, leaving Hasan and Gideon alone. She had to attend to the Black Hand, to see how they were doing. They'd been left alone for the past few hours with Gerard and Zach. Since there'd been no disturbances, they were hopefully dealt with by now.

**WWW**

"Look at that gentlemen. Look at that beautiful hand. Three of a kind and a straight flush. Tell me that isn't beautiful. Now pay up" the Black Hand trooper said with an enormous grin on his face. Gerard and Zach replied with glares.

They'd taken to purposely losing to get the guards in a better mood, plying them with alcohol which they'd refused due to being on duty. But what they had succeeded in doing was putting them in a very good mood by purposely losing and then some.

With a sigh Zach handed over his wad of cash, the plastic notes crinkling with their crispness. The Black Hand sergeant smiled greedily. He'd been ripping money off these kafirs since the start of the game. He didn't know why but their luck was terrible. Somehow they must have upset some deity at some point.

Of course, to believe in deities was blasphemous as far as Nod was concerned. All worship was to be directed towards the Brotherhood of Nod and Kane in his righteous glory.

The door opened and Meera entered. The men continued playing as Meera watched. Their boss had been out for the better part of two hours and the Black Hand troopers exchanged glances at the tousled and mussed hair of Dr Merovin's assistant.

There'd always been rumours that she was sleeping with him, assisting him in more ways than one, especially so in the terms of sexual favours. Her messy appearance, in contrast to the usual neatness she exhibited, only added more fuel to the fire.

Meera knew of this rumour and exploited it skilfully, leaning against the wall and acting exhausted. She flicked her eyes back and forth between the Black Hand and the pathfinders, locking eyes with Zach and Gerard as they realised what she planned.

"So...shall we break out some beers?" Gerard asked, smoothly pushing back his chair as he stood up. The Black Hand glanced up and continued. They didn't suspect a thing. Meera moved behind them. In a burst of motion it was over as Meera raised the needlegun and shot the two Black Hand playing at the table while Gerard and Zach silenced the other with swift chops to the neck.

**WWW**

"We'll be transporting ourselves over to a hidden bunker I requisitioned further south of the city. But we've got to move fast. Did you liquidate the Black Hand?"

Gerard nodded. This wasn't a standard situation. This far behind enemy lines, with a defector of Gideon Merovin's value as well as the information he carried, the standard operating procedures and rules did not apply in a decidedly non-standard scenario.

His silenced pistol had ended the lives of the Black Hand but he couldn't bring himself to kill the whore, a girl barely older than 14, so he'd simply knocked her out with a punch and stuffed her into the closet. The staff of the motel would discover them with time but by then they'd be clear of Aswan. The rooms had been booked for an entire day. In such seedy districts the hotels didn't ask and didn't want to know.

"Out of curiosity why did you prepare such a cache?" Zach asked.

Gideon spoke up, glancing at this woman whom he thought he knew. Hasan their leader stood behind him. "I had her requisition the cache in the eventuality of us having to evacuate. Nod had many internal disputes and I simply wished to be prepared in the eventuality -"

"Did anyone ask you to speak?" Hasan said softly. Gideon shut up immediately. The man behind him was of the type that he could identify quickly. A cynical, bitter veteran after a lengthy period of service, especially after so many covert operations, his priority was accomplishing his mission objective and getting his team home alive.

He knew this sort well. Intelligent, motivated, dangerous and able to fit in where needed, able to switch from amiable and congenial one instant to an utterly ruthless bastard the next. The hallmark of GDI Special Forces.

"You are a defector because you were forced into the situation. But you are also a prisoner. You will listen to everything I say. You will obey. And if you compromise the possibility of our escape at any point, I will _end_ you. Is _that_ clear?" he said in a dangerously low voice, staring straight into Gideon's eyes.

At that point Gideon realised how _tall_ the man actually was. Not tall in the sense of physical height, but _tall_ in the sense of the aura of confidence and command he exuded. This was a man who could make you feel small if he wanted to.

_This was a man who could kill him._

"Ye...Yes. Yes sir" he meekly replied, trying to make himself invisible in a corner.

Hasan nodded at Gerard and Zach as they moved out, walking as calmly as possible back to the buggy. Meera had already informed them of how Gideon had been forced to stick to a curfew by the base commander in the interest of his safety, given how crucial he was to the project as its director.

They had a two hour window in which to get to the cache at Elephantine Island from where they'd be able to exploit a gap in the sensor screen of the Nod to escape from Aswan.

**WWW**

From their mission briefing before being deployed to Aswan, Hasan knew a team of pathfinders near Elephantine Island had been given orders to stay put and continue observation for three days before withdrawing.

They'd maintained radio silence since the start of the operation but now that the Guards had presumably pulled back to their bases in Abu Simbel and Wadi Halfa, it was a gamble that Hasan had to take, not knowing whether they were still present in their last known location.

Which was exactly what that team was doing as it relayed coordinate data to roving packs of Behemoth Artillery Walkers which stalked the Tiberium fields, escorted by Titans and Predators. From their hide in the cliffs, they utilise powerful binoculars and telescopes, broadcasting on narrowband frequencies to the long-ranged artillery assets newly deployed by the GDI.

The earlier orbital bombardment had cracked upon large gaps in their air defences as well as cut large swathes through their ground defences, leaving tunnels exposed to infiltrators. Nod knew this left them vulnerable and so did GDI. Which meant that Nod forces would be busy attempting to lock down vulnerable areas in their defences, diverting manpower from other areas of their base.

In essence, GDI was having a field day as electronic warfare teams jammed Nod frequencies for kilometres around Aswan, roving teams of Wild Weasel Bloodhounds broadcasting all manner of static and disruptive material across the electronic frequencies used by Nod. Teams of GDI crackers ripped through their electronic networks, pulses of phase array masers scrambling the sensitive communication towers that acted as a relay from Aswan to more distant Nod outposts.

Combined with the incessant pounding of the artillery, Nod's hold on Aswan and their military infrastructure within the region were slowly being degraded to the point of non-functionality.

**WWW**

As the intrepid team made their way towards Elephantine Island, Nod had its hands full chasing electronic ghosts throughout its base perimeter as GDI spoofed multiple contacts on all known Nod sensors, inundating their scanners with enemy contacts and sending the base security into chaos.

Naturally the valiant team of pathfinders didn't realise this and so cautiously made their way at a speed that was less than what they would have liked. Taking a sharp corner, Gerard accelerated the buggy to its top speed, bypassing several checkpoints in the hopes of avoiding suspicion. They were heading out into the areas of Aswan that bordered the Red Zones beyond, the signs of civilisation slowly disappearing as the glow of Tiberium permeated the horizon.

Several hazard warning signs along with crumbling buildings lined their route as they navigated the circuitous path around the Nod hotbed of Aswan. Hasan winced as they passed by several derelict churches and mosques. A follower of Sufi Islam, he'd been brought up by a Buddhist father and Muslim mother and taught to regard all religions with respect, putting aside Scientology and Nodeanism.

It pained him to see the ruins as they were. Religion had been the source of much conflict. After all, humans always needed some excuse to fight and what better cause than ideology, a greater cause, be it for the state, an abstract ideal such as honour or religion.

The Tiberium Wars were different in that they were for survival. GDI may not have been the ideal choice that it presented itself as but it was the best hope for survival to all humanity. The TCO was simply a bloc of states within the GDI that served to protect the interests of their own people and bypass the bureaucratic morass that so often bogged other GDI projects.

The sudden roar of jets shook him from his lull as Hasan quickly directed Gerard to park their buggy in the shadows of a ruined mosque. Shifting gears Gerard gunned for it and braked, sliding into a spot of shadow provided by the ruined minaret.

He turned to glare at Gideon.

"You never mentioned anything about air patrols?" he snarled.

"There aren't!" Gideon said, his palms up and open as if trying to ward off an invisible threat.

"Hm. Then something's changed. Zach, do you think we could use our laser feed to contact the commandos? Last time I check they had a receiver set up to act as a relay for the other teams."

Zach closed his eyes as he tried to recall the details before nodding. "We should be able to. I've got their coordinates from the last two days but they could've shifted by now...."

"Try anyway" Hasan said, eyes fixed on the horizon as he pondered their course of action.

Gideon stared after the aircraft, identifying them as Armageddon bombers. This close to the coming ion storm it was extremely risky for them to be airborne. Which meant only an incident of extreme urgency could have forced them to lift off....

**WWW**

Rojas stormed the room, finger twitching on his trigger. His section stood outside, armed to the teeth and prepared to kill. During the failed attack by the GDI on the Aswan Temple, news had reached several members of the High Council of rumoured moves by several affiliated factions to break free of the main Nod grouping and form their own independent faction.

The orbital bombardment by the TCO forces had merely given the opportunity for the Nod forces of Hogar's Raiders, General Hogar's personal elite, to infiltrate the base and proceed with purging it of the rumoured dissidents.

Gideon Merovin and his allies had always been held to be a political liability by General Hogar and now was the perfect opportunity to rid himself of Gideon and restore his political position in the labyrithine maze that was Brotherhood politics.

Kane had long ago been assassinated by several dissenters within his inner circle after repeated attempts at negotiating with the GDI, combined with the actions of loyalists of the late Killian Qatar. Kanes own hardline stance against negotiating with the GDI, combined with the assassination of many of his closest generals, a masterpiece of deception on the part of GDI InOps, had broken their will to fight.

While Kane may have been able to miraculously survive an ion cannon strike and various other assassination attempts, General Hogar had been thorough and methodical in his elimination of Kane this time.

He doubted Kane would ever recover from being decapitated, quartered, incinerated and ashes shunted into orbit for good measure. Just to be sure, he kept Kane's head stuffed and mounted on his desk.

Rojas had been present and served as General Hogar's enforcer and silencer, explaining his presence here. He'd been sent in to liquidate Dr Merovin for certain transgressions involving the general's daughter, along with certain scandalous photos that had been distributed over the Brotherhood network in the last few hours.

He nudged the body of the Black Hand trooper with a foot, drawing a groan from the unconscious man. Rojas quickly resolved that by firing a single silenced round into his head. Just then one of his men pulled a girl from the locked closet. Eyes wide with terror, she blubbered something about GDI soldiers before his man backhanded the girl, sending her sprawling in a corner.

"What's she saying Gasson?" Rojas asked as he prepared to leave the room. They'd been informed that Dr Merovin had last been sighted in the company of his bodyguards and secretary in this building along with other suspicious characters; Aswani drug dealers by all accounts.

"Something about GDI Pathfinders. She's just blabbering on and on about how some guys came in and killed the Black Hand" Gasson replied, pulling his pistol out from its holster.

Rojas raised his hand and went to the girl, pulling her up by her hair. Pathfinders were a rare breed, as dangerous as commandos if not more simply by virtue of their training. He had to find out more.

"Talk" he said to the girl, noting the desperation in her eyes. She was scared, afraid, terrified of everything that was going on around her. He could use that. In a sympathetic voice he began to question her, calming her down and asking her for more information.

As her story unfolded, his eyes began to widen in disbelief. The GDI had infiltrated a team of pathfinders to extract Dr Gideon Merovin! The pathfinders had accomplished one of the hardest feats possible, bypassing several layers of security and making it through the gangland territory at the fringes of Aswan to come this deep into Aswan, from what he could surmise. This changed the security situation entirely.

Shaking his head in disbelief, he rose and quickly silenced the girl with a headshot. They had to get to the pathfinders and somehow capture or kill Gideon Merovin before they were extracted from Aswan. Rapidly punching a message into his keypad, he informed Aswan Command of the situation.

**WWW**

Meera slipped the key card through the slot, the lights flashing green as they confirmed her identity. She'd assembled the cache covertly, a secret known only to her and a few select individuals during her tenure as Gideon's assistant.

The steel shutter rolled open to reveal a well-stocked bunker filled with food items, water packs, a modestly sized armoury and even a small bunk. But the real prize was the customised IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) within. Based around the chassis of an old Nod SAV-F (Subterranean Armoured Vehicle- Flame), it weighed in at 15 tonnes. It had been fitted with extra ceramic armour and a single machine gun while additional water and fuel tanks had been added on to extend its range.

Able to traverse even the harshest Red Zone environment and hardened against EMP, it also possessed a powerful radio with AM and FM capability. It was designed and built for one purpose – if anything ever went to hell in Aswan, Gideon could leave Aswan _fast. _In relative comfort of course. For that he;d fitted a stereo system and wine chiller in the tank as well. Capable of digging underground and bypassing most obstacles, it was the perfect escape vehicle.

Gerard whistled as he examined the rifles stacked in the racks. Laser rifles, flamers and even a prototype rail rifle, rumours of which had been rife amongst the GDI. Due to the efficacy of railgun technologies in general as well as the astounding morale and effectiveness of GDI Sniper teams and GDI armour assets, Nod had taken to replicating elements of the GDI arsenal in an attempt to counter GDI's successes.

After all, GDI had gone to the trouble of developing point defence lasers for use in their own vehicles, effectively neutralising the threat of Nod anti-armour missiles. This was of course reverse-engineered from Nod's own laser technologies.

Nod's attempts at industrial and scientific espionage had been soundly countered by GDI failsafes and InOps COIN (Counter-Intelligence) activities, so their efforts had ultimately failed. In the meantime the GDI had gone on to develop man-portable rail rifles capable of piercing the armour of even a Scorpion tank, without requiring an armoured suit to wield it. Through creative use of recoil compensators they'd managed to miniaturise it to the size of a man-portable missile launcher, launching tungsten slugs capable of ripping through Scorpion armour.

Zach frowned as he worked on the radio, before risking detection and turning his transmitter to full power. In a narrowband burst, he directed it at the general proximity of where the other pathfinder team should have been. In a matter of seconds he gained a prompt reply and gave a small whoop of joy.

"Hasan, we're through. They're on station and are currently aware of our situation. They're relaying it to HQ now. Now all we got to do is get out of this god forsaken shithole and head back to base. We've got a ride, we've bagged a prize. Now all we need to do is wait."

**WWW**

Jambu looked at the data scrolling across his screens. The team that had gotten behind enemy lines was currently in a position to be extracted, along with a high value target. As the name of their defecting hostage came up on screen and his dossier followed, Jambu's eyes nearly bugged out.

"The bastards actually got him!" he swore loudly in disbelief before he realised the sudden silence his outburst had caused in the command centre. Lieutenant Colonels as a rule did not lose their composure. Clearing his throat, Jambu glanced around before pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

**WWW**

Rojas looked at the coordinates he'd received from the base quarters where they'd received a suspicious transmission. A patrolling cyborg unit had picked up the transmission coming from Elephantine Island, further south of Aswan.

After decrypting it several keywords and a cursory analysis had indicated a high probability that it was the pathfinder team that had been deployed by the GDI. Knowing of the situation, they were the ones most likely to have possession of the defecting Gideon Merovin.

Peering through binoculars, he spotted movement among the remains of the botanical greenhouses that dotted the island. Zooming in as he focused the lenses, he adjusted it for greater clarity before resolving to see a subterranean tank exiting a hidden door that closed upon itself.

He clicked on the radio as he gave the command for the Shadow Teams to proceed. Shadows covered his face as overhead the Shadow Teams swooped in , bound for Elephantine Island. Their mission was simple: kill anyone on the island who wasn't Nod.

With Gideon Merovin already slated for execution and defecting as he was, that simply allowed Rojas to be extremely prejudicial in the execution of his orders which were to exterminate him either way. That he got a Pathfinder team in the mix simply added spice to his life.

At this point things started getting hairy as Gasson's head exploded in a spectacular burst of grey matter, bone and blood. Rojas immediately dropped to the ground prone and began to crawl as members of the Shadow Teams began to drop from the sky.

"_Snipers"_ he cursed, as he directed the artillery to began bombardment in the hope of suppressing the incoming fire.

**WWW**

Looking through the scope, Hasan took several shots, crippling multiple Nod troopers in succession. He saw a man slip behind a rock for cover and directed a round at his exposed foot, watching it explode in a burst of red through his scope.

He breathed in and out, willing himself to keep calm as bullets ricocheted around him. They didn't know where he was yet but soon enough they would. He'd managed to take out at least three of the seven Shadow Teams heading to the island but not before the others had landed.

The other pathfinder team across the river couldn't provide covering fire without compromising their position and Meera had ordered them to stay hidden while they and the rest of them drove across.

"Hasan! Get in here _now_!" Zach called from the back of the tank. At that point a massive cyborg barrelled through the rear wall, flakes of concrete and slpinters of hardened steel embedded in its frame. Hasan cursed. An _Enlightened_.

Enlightened cyborgs of the Marked of Kane were the bane of any infantryman in close quarters like this. The best way to deal with them was from long range with snipers or with railguns.

It raised its particle beam, locking onto the tank. In a blur of motion it suddenly found itself thrown to the ground as Hasan charged in, using his sniper rifle to clobber it in a berserk melee, using the butt to slam its optics to fragments before dodging back out of its reach.

The cyborg blindly fired, barely missing Hasan and the tank. As Zach took a step out of the tank, Hasan's hyper-charged awareness took note of the slowness with which he moved. An effect of his implants and nano-glands that suffused his body with adrenaline, electrochemical impulses firing throughout his system.

In the mental haze that seemed to come over his conscious mind, he reached out to Zach in a single step and brought his leg up, cocking it before slamming the ball of his foot into his abdomen, thrusting Zach back into the tank. He reached in and pressed the button to close the door, an indistinct voice shouting at the tank to move. The tank started its drills as it began to burrow into the ground, clods of dirt flying.

Hasan whirled and dropped to his knees, sweeping out the cyborg's feet before slamming his booted feet into his face once more as it blindly groped about for him. He brought a foot back and then another, cycling backwards before reaching the weapons rack.

His sniper had broken in half, the firing chamber exposed to the air. Ripping a particle rifle from the rack, he rammed the barrel into the cyborg's face and opened fire, just as the cyborg's own particle beam intersected with a footlocker that happened to contain several grenades.

**WWW**

The blast took Rojas by surprise as he circled the island, swooping in ever lower as he prepared to land, his hang glider's ailerons adjusting in the cool air. He'd had several cyborgs shot from a cannon designed after the specifications of the old French Grand Cannon, used in the Second Great War to halt the movement of Soviet armour columns into Western Europe.

Colloquially termed 'man-cannons', Rojas had to chuckle at whoever had come up with the name. It was an obvious double entendre the science types had missed out. Normal men would have been shredded but cyborgs could endure the stress of it without complaint. As such they were perfectly suited to such deployment.

"Red Leader to all point. Land and proceed with caution over" he commed over the tactical net. When it came to pathfinders and GDI Special Forces, he never trusted them to be dead until he found the body. And even them, one could be wrong. Especially with Pathfinders.

**WWW**

Hasan tasted copper in his mouth, felt shudders through his body as the attack overcame him, his lungs filling with water phlegm as his body reacted to it. His hands trembled and convulsed as he reached for his nebuliser only to find it gone.

He was in a dark place, ear ringing with the violence of the explosion. He began to breathe in slowly, fighting the panic that came to his mind. He struggled to breathe and forced his coughs into silence, spitting and hacking the phlegm from his mouth as he spat it out to the side.

The cyborg had set off a container of grenades in the main room of the bunker. With barely a split second to act Hasan had wrenched open the door to the toilet and closed it before the explosion had ripped it clear off its hinges and sent him slamming into the wall.

He tried to rise but an explosion of pain from his ribs dropped him to the floor as he coughed out a bit more blood. "_Broken ribs" _Hasan thought hazily through the pain as he struggled to rise. He placed a palm on the ground to support himself as he slowly rose, bending his knees slowly and methodically. A massive force suddenly slammed into him and he found himself staring at the ceiling before he saw a boot slamming into his face.

**WWW**

Rojas slapped the pathfinder awake, looking at his bloody face, the nose broken and cheek broken, the eyes swollen shut. The man's face was a mess. Mostly from the explosion but in part from the brutality of the Shadow team that had found him.

Pathfinders were worse than commandos simply because of the havoc they could cause in any Nod territory. They were versatile, lethal and cunning, an animal that willingly entered the Brotherhood's trap and broke it from within before overcoming the hunter by sheer violence and wiliness.

"So....how about we skip the chit chat? Your team managed to abscond with Gideon Merovin and his secretary who happened to be a deep cover agent within Nod. I was supposed to kill him. Naturally, this leaves me without a mission and extraordinarily pissed. So what I'm gonna do..."

Rojas slammed his fist into Hasan's face before gripping him by the hair and pulling his face up.

"I'm going to torture you and make you talk simply because it'll let off some steam. And also, I happen to see from your tags that you're a Muslim. Now Nod always had the worst trouble in the Islamic territories. Muslim's never knew when to stop blowing themselves up and eventuality even the Christians caught on. Goddamn Jews were too wily for that shit though. So before I send you to Allah -"

Unfortunately for the three of them, Hasan was a super soldier reject of GDI's Project Bahadur. Even without the full enhancements of a Bahadur, even with all the defects that came with it, he was still faster than they could ever hope to be.

In a flash he'd risen, adrenaline driving his charge as he tossed them to the sides and closed with Rojas. In a flurry of blows Hasan launched a volley of devastating jabs and crosses in streaks that slammed into bone with incredible force before finishing with a palm strike to the sternum.

Rojas did his best to dodge the flurry before he drew his combat knife, slamming the tip into Hasan's arm. Hasan twisted his forearm as Rojas pulled his arm back, the blade lodged in the flesh of his forearm as a river of red ran from it.

In the split second which was all Hasan needed, he took out the other two Nod troopers, twisting their necks and breaking their skulls with rapidfire kicks in quick order. As he twisted his hips and slammed an elbow into Rojas who attempted to close with him, his muscles abruptly shut down, the adrenaline dump lessening as the impulses in his central nervous system descended into chaos.

His arms started to convulse as Rojas twisted backwards and rammed a powerful backfist into his neck with all his strength, sending Hasan sprawling and reeling or breath. He aimed a kick at Hasan's groin just as Hasan slammed his foot into his knee, the point of the boot digging into the soft muscle.

With a yell of pain Rojas dropped to one foot before he began to grapple with Hasan, pulling the knife free from his forearm and bringing it down. Tumbling and rolling in a melee that was interjected with staccato shots to the kidney and ribs, they tumbled down a gravel hillside before coming to a rest.

Rojas stood victorious, straddling Hasan's chest as he kept his weight centred on his chest, pressing his advantage as he brought his weight down on the blade, pressing it inexorably down towards Hasan's heart.

If they had met with Hasan fresh and uninjured there would have been no doubt who would have triumphed. But after 2 days without sleep and minimal food as well as constant physiological stresses upon his body, Rojas had the advantage, feeling the strength in Hasan's limbs failing.

"Prepared to meet your maker Muslim? Prepared to be killed by an unbeliever?" Rojas hissed through gritted teeth, seeing the gleam of flickering emotion in Hasan's eyes before Hasan suddenly bucked his hips and shoved his hands into his chest.

It was the last thing he experienced as the sniper round exited through his torso in a spray of blood.

**WWW**

Hasan crawled to the glider pack and strapped it to himself. He heard the desperate shouts of the other Shadow teams as they converged on his position. With a desperation borne of the desire to live, he rose up and started to run before leaping and became airborne.

He'd used his knowledge of the other Pathfinder teams location to lead the Nod officer into a trap, hoping against hope that Sergeant Kasad could pull off the shot. He was the best sniper among the pathfinders serving amongst the Singapore Guards.

He flickered in and out of consciousness as he aimed at a location somewhere near the sniper hide, accelerating for it, hoping against hope itself that he could make it. Stray shots echoed around him before a laser fired from the ground winged the glider and sent him crashing the last hundred metres to the sandy ground.

**WWW**

**Twelve Hours Later at Abu Sombol...**

"Hasan you crazy motherfucker!" Kasad said as he stared at the injured pathfinder. He'd broken his back and both legs along with moderate internal bleeding and bruising across his entire body. The others were being debriefed. It had been a hell of an extraction, that was for certain.

In the small window of opportunity they'd been afforded, a second round of orbital bombardments had blanketed Nod's Aswan defences while GDI had obscured their sensor screen with vast clouds of chaff. Using this they managed to extract themselves from the situation with no less than 12 Venoms pursuing them before they'd been shot out of the sky by the new SCO Garuda's.

Floating in his neutral buoyancy tank, his legs held together in plastic splints, Hasan weakly gave a thumbs up as Meera and the rest trooped in.

"Hasan...you're a motherfucking badass. You know that?" whispered Zach as he looked at him. Hasan looked at the intertwined hands of Meera and Zach, the two ex-lovers before nodding. A deep voice emitted from the modulator attached to his tank.

"I'm a badass. Not a motherfucker. Not yet anyway. Though I reckon you'd qualify within a year or two if things go as I foresee..." before smiling.

Gerard sat down by the tank and tapped his fist against the glass. "Well Hasan...mission accomplished."


End file.
